


Deus Ex Machina

by Guede



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, Bondage, Crack Treated Seriously, Dom/sub Undertones, Inappropriate Use of Reno's Rod, M/M, Multi, Sex Toys, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 15:00:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4611120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaded time-traveler Cloud pops into a <i>really</i> alternate universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deus Ex Machina

**Author's Note:**

> I've never played the games. I did, however, obsessively read the strategy guide, the wiki, watch the _Advent Children_ movie, and otherwise hoard secondary sources, once upon a time.
> 
> Originally written in 2014.

Cloud jumps back much farther than normal. He’s not sure why, at the time. He’s done this enough times that he’s got it down to a checklist of half a dozen critical changes he can make sleepwalking—provided he lands in the usual stretch, somewhere between starting basic training and heading off for Nibelheim with Sephiroth and Zack. It doesn’t even hurt now, really, seeing everybody. At this point they’re just—he thinks of the word _puppets_ and winces, but it’s embarrassment, not fear or humiliation or that deep, dark craving for power, the piece of Jenova’s shadow that had lingered the longest. No, after watching his friends and enemies through so many different lifetimes, they’ve just gotten kind of…distant.

He still loves them, or is disgusted by them, respectively. It’s just he’s so used to—well, directing them. He comes in and changes their lives and it all plays out, and at the end of the day they go on and he leaves. It’s helped with a lot of his issues, he’ll admit, and he’ll also admit that it’s helped in a pretty fucked-up way. But anyway, he’s more or less gotten over them and so it’s hard to get attached. So maybe that’s why.

Maybe he’s just bored. Anyway, this time he lands when Hojo’s still running his experiments from the Shinra mansion at Nibelheim. He pokes around one night, finds an unconscious Vincent strapped to a table with both arms still flesh-and-blood. The man’s already been irrevocably changed, but it’s not too late to interfere.

Cloud doesn’t just yank him off the table. He’s clearly barely alive, needing the machines around him to stay that way, and besides, Cloud’s not sure exactly what’s been done so far. So he starts reading the logbooks scattered around the place to figure it out, and…he just tries something. He’s screwed up Hojo’s plans about a thousand different ways by now, but they’ve all basically boiled down to brute force. Because he’s a soldier, not a scholar—but he knows more about Jenova than anyone, including Jenova herself. And he certainly knows more than the incoherent and vague and just plain _wrong_ references Hojo’s been relying on.

He fixes things. He’s correcting an inaccuracy before he half-realizes, and then, when he’s done, he just looks at the page. Thinks about it. He could fix all of them, feed Hojo the truth, but is that really going to deter the man? He knows it won’t. And he fixes things. It’s already making history, the way he does it.

So Cloud spends an hour or so forging documents. And he comes back the next night, after having handled Jenova’s remains in the reactor, and does some more rewriting. And then every night after that, until Vincent’s stabilized enough to get pulled out of the lab.

Cloud takes them to Banora, figuring he’ll check on where Hollander is with Genesis and Angeal, and have easy access to Shinra lab supplies if Vincent’s health demands it. And just as well, since Vincent this early on is…uncooperative. He’s less depressed, more argumentative. He hasn’t had the forced time to really think things over and work through what’s happened. He wants to go back to Lucrecia. It’s a little irritating to realize that being locked in a coffin was, apparently, a major maturing factor in Vincent’s life.

After a couple weeks Cloud just lets the man go, without really enlightening him as to who or what Cloud is. Vincent’s been a friend, but Cloud’s learned to appreciate enough other versions. He doesn’t need to hold onto this one.

Genesis was always a brat, Cloud notes, revising and rearranging Hollander’s work, and then Cloud takes off for a while. He figures he’s got so much time in this world, he can do some traveling. Some _real_ traveling, just enjoying what he sees and does and meeting people without giving a damn about what role they play. Which, of course, means he goes very, very far away from any damn place that’d been important before.

So he loses track of time a little. He still arrives back in Midgar well ahead of schedule. A year or so before the Wutai war, in fact, which is plenty of time to stop by Aeris’ house and take her out for a stroll and a long talk. She doesn’t travel between worlds like he does, but something about the Lifestream, at least, seems to carry over because she always understands right away. And this version is no different, running out for a hug before he’s even introduced himself.

After that (and a snack, and some weeding), she grows solemn. “Things are…a little different in this one,” she tells him, squeezing his arm.

Cloud shrugs. “They’re all different.”

“No, I mean…” She looks down, a blush stealing over her cheeks. Aeris is almost never embarrassed, or uncomfortable about talking about something. Then she squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath. “Well, Cloud, you’re already dead.”

“That’s happened a couple times,” Cloud says. Not enough times so that he doesn’t blink hard at her, but after that first moment, he’s fine. It’s just an odd feeling. That, and the fact that timelines where he’s died before even making it to Midgar tend to take even more work. Sometimes he resents the fact that he’s easier to work _around_ than replace. “What about everyone else?”

“Oh, your mom’s fine. Tifa’s fine. Tifa’s already in Midgar, actually,” Aeris says. She looks a little more relieved at how well he’s taking it. “I’ve run into her a couple times. It was a…there was a problem with the reactor, and Shinra ended up relocating everyone in Nibelheim. She’s taking care of your mom, if you want to go see them.”

Cloud nods. He will, eventually, but even though it’s his mother, it’s… _a_ mother of his, and he’s sent her off enough times. He can wait. “What else is it?”

“Oh, well…” Aeris is silent for a little while. She shoots him a glance or two, then straightens her shoulders again. “Maybe you should just see? Tseng?”

Tseng, of course, has been tailing Aeris the whole time. He’s been unusually sloppy about it, in fact, but Cloud hasn’t been paying that much attention. He does now, when Tseng stumbles into view, his eyes wide and blown, one hand wrapped around the other wrist, with bruises blossoming where his nails are digging in. And then the smell of arousal hits.

It’s so strong in the air that it stings Cloud’s nose. He blows out sharply and Tseng drops clumsily to his knees in the middle of the garden, crushing half a row of flowers. Tseng sways, still staring at Cloud, and then begins to tip forward. Cloud thinks he’s attacking and grabs his shoulder, wrenches him back and Tseng arches, _gasps_ , and—

“It’s different,” Aeris says, as Tseng collapses in Cloud’s arms. She’s looking away, deeply red, absently fiddling with her skirt. “It’s…I don’t think you meant to do it. Right?”

Cloud just sits there, with the head of the Turks semiconscious in his arms, and even then Tseng is turning his body into Cloud, pushing his face into the crook of Cloud’s neck. And that’s when Cloud…sort of feels him. Psychically. It’s not the same as the connection between all the clones. That wasn’t voluntary. This, Cloud seems to be able to control. He just grazes the edge of Tseng’s mind, just enough to confirm the link, and then he shuts it down and Tseng _whimpers_. He clutches at Cloud, broadcasting distress and confusion and a whole hell of other things, until finally Cloud opens the link back up the merest crack.

Tseng shudders, then twists slightly. Cloud lets go and Tseng sits back on his heels, breathing in and out slowly. Then he gets up, and with ragged composure, asks if Cloud would mind coming back to Shinra Tower with him.

He goes into Aeris’ house to tidy himself while Aeris throws as much of a fit as she can, demanding that Cloud go with him. Because they just saw, Cloud can _hurt_ him, and Cloud didn’t mean to do it but it’s done and now they need to—do something about it. She blushes and gestures vaguely when she says the last part.

Cloud agrees only once Aeris has explained to him that Hojo has also died early, and that she is not in danger of being snatched for experimentation. Tseng comes back out, immaculate again, and escorts Cloud to a waiting car. He doesn’t ask questions and he’s…deferential, is how Cloud finally plugs his behavior. They’ve had relationships ranging from vicious to grudgingly respectful, but even the better ones hadn’t seen Tseng so…he’s meek. He keeps glancing at Cloud, and it’s not the way Aeris had glanced at him. He’s got a good hold on himself but it’s abundantly clear that he’d drop it if Cloud…did something.

When they get to Shinra Tower, they head for the army headquarters, much to Cloud’s surprise. He comments on it and Tseng’s stride breaks for a moment. It’s a familiar enough mannerism, one Cloud’s seen a thousand times when the other man’s covered his leader.

That being Rufus. Just as Cloud thinks of him, Tseng tells him, in a low, unhurried, entirely unconcerned voice, that he does not see the wisdom of bringing this to the President’s attention at this time.

They turn down a corridor Cloud recognizes, and he automatically shifts his shoulders against the sword harness. He’s run into as many sane ones as not, and learned that there’s really no certain way to know which way this particular break will run. So he’s ready, when they walk into Sephiroth’s office.

He is not exactly ready, he supposes, to see Vincent again. The man hasn’t aged at all—he’s kept his hair short, skimming his cheekbones, and he’s wearing a Turk suit minus the jacket. He stares back at Cloud, his eyes wide. “Oh,” he says. “Oh. It’s _you_.”

“Who?” Sephiroth says. He’s standing next to Vincent, still frowning at the papers spread over his desk, and then he lifts his head.

Sane, Cloud thinks, and then he frowns. He can feel this Sephiroth, and it’s more like the way he felt the others, except it’s not identical. But then Sephiroth is asking questions, his voice cool and assertive, and Cloud sighs and tries to decide what story he’s going to use this time.

Vincent interrupts, while Tseng closes the door. Sephiroth looks irritated but he allows it, and Cloud buys a little time by catching up on things. Lucrecia had stayed around a few more years this time, long enough for Sephiroth to actually remember her, but she and Vincent had been a doomed couple for more reasons than bad science and Hojo. It’s not that surprising to see Vincent’s bare left hand, or to find out that here, _Vincent_ heads up the Turks.

It _is_ surprising to hear that Lucrecia’s still alive, heading a research outpost near the Northern Crater, of all places, and that Vincent is apologetic about things he apparently said to Cloud when he was leaving. Cloud honestly doesn’t recall. It wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention, but it just…didn’t mean much to him at the time, Vincent running off after his lost love yet again. He shrugs it off, asks after Vincent’s health, expects the grimace. Doesn’t quite expect the halting questions about Chaos, Hellmasker, the other demons that apparently still made it into Vincent. Except different. More controllable, apparently.

After a few minutes Cloud figures out that Vincent thinks he had something to do with it. He’s confused about _that_. He doesn’t remember doing anything to the notes about them.

Cloud fends off Vincent’s questions and tries to change the subject, and gradually notices that the other two men in the room are…acting oddly. Tseng started off by the door and has worked his way over to Cloud’s left side, about a yard off, and he’s fidgeting. He never fidgets. He’s fidgeting and flicking looks at Sephiroth, who Cloud had assumed was just bored with the whole conversation, but it dawns on Cloud that the distant look on Sephiroth’s face isn’t genuine.

And Vincent is being unnaturally talkative. Annoyance spikes in Cloud, he’s been so slow today, and Vincent abruptly shuts up, jerking up straight in his seat.

Then a hand slaps the desk, right in front of Vincent, and the man’s face goes stony. Cloud immediately has a spell swirling in his hand, ready for whatever demon is going to come out, and Sephiroth flinches back from where he’s leaned over the desk, barring Vincent’s way. His eyes are glassy. He—he _flattens_ when Cloud looks at him, his hands scattering papers aside as he bends to nearly lie across the desk. Behind him, Vincent is gripping the arms of his chair and outright squirming, and then there’s a pair of soft thumps as Tseng’s knees hit the carpet by Cloud.

Cloud curses and snaps the spell, pulls all his power back into himself, and Sephiroth’s eyes roll back into his skull. Next thing Cloud knows, the General is collapsed over his desk, and the others in the room are little better.

Different, Aeris says.

* * *

The President is still Rufus’ father. He’s more active than the norm, which does tend to confirm Cloud’s theories that Hojo had been experimenting on other versions of the man. It helps that both the Turks and SOLDIER will be firmly ranged against him on this, but unfortunately, since Hojo’s not eating up a significant portion of the budget, there’s more money to spend on projects like Reeve’s surveillance robots and Scarlet’s remote-controlled weaponry.

Reeve is probably trustworthy, at the end of the day, but Cloud and he had a perfectly normal chat in one of Shinra’s many coffeerooms, so he’s not affected. He doesn’t have to be told, and given who’s involved, no one wants to tell him before he has to be.

They got to Lazard while he was alone in his office, and Tseng saw to it that Cloud met Rufus and Reno in an empty, temporarily unmonitored conference room. And Rude, but he isn’t affected, strangely enough. Elena’s still going through introductory training and pulling her out would be too noticeable. Besides, Cloud suspects it’s only going to be the men.

Genesis was easy enough to call to Sephiroth’s quarters. Angeal, of all people, was the most difficult. He had turned off his PHS—something about an argument over breakfast—and finally Cloud had to track him down to a sparring room. And then carry him back unseen, since Vincent had shakily informed him that none of them felt up to leaving Sephiroth’s rooms to assist.

Once everyone is assembled and convinced, they want to know what the hell is going on. And then they’re flopped all over the place, their minds babbling with shock and confusion and fervent regret because that’s what happens when one of them gets too aggressive with Cloud. He doesn’t even have to do anything.

He’s starting to get an idea by that point, but he needs to think about it some more. Think about it, and research it, and also kill a couple things because he’d really thought his life was past being this fucked up.

“Zack,” he says, a scoop of coffee grinds in his hand, standing in Sephiroth’s kitchen.

“Fair?” Sephiroth is standing in the doorway. He’s gripping the jamb with one hand, black-gloved fingers making the wood creak, his whole posture unnaturally rigid. He can stand more than the rest of them, but he’s also far more sensitive. And far more likely to react badly to a loss of control. Cloud would have expected Angeal or Lazard. “Zack Fair? Angeal’s—”

“No, I guess he’d be too young at this point,” Cloud mutters. He dumps the grinds into the filter, then turns around and drops it into the coffeemaker. “He hasn’t had mako treatments yet.”

“Is that what this is about?” Sephiroth asks. His voice is already strained.

“Let’s.” Cloud stops himself and stares at the blinking light on the coffeemaker. Then he shakes his head. “Do you want to go back and sit? I’m going to explain in a second.”

Sephiroth’s eyes narrow. Cloud can see his mind struggling to work through things; he’s slowed down, but he’s so intelligent to start with that the pause isn’t really noticeable. “You’re trying not to trigger it.”

“I generally try to ask first,” Cloud says under his breath. 

Which is probably more than he needs to say. Though Sephiroth—this Sephiroth—can’t stalk through his mind, not if he’s right about what’s going on. On the contrary, he can think all he wants about how fucked up this is, and how fucked-up he is, and how he’s more than fine with himself these days, with what he’s found out about himself and grown into, but how he still doesn’t need _these_ people to know about it. And none of them can see that unless he lets them. Which they don’t need to know about either.

They do, actually. He’s just being petty. All right, he’s fucking angry about it. He fixes timelines, he gives them their lives back, and in return all he asks for is his own life once in a while. And no, mostly they aren’t part of that now. He’s…when he’s working with them, when he’s fixing things, it’s not really his _life_. It’s his _job_.

“Cloud?” Sephiroth says, quietly, hesitantly. Usually the versions that use his first name that easily are the evil ones. “I think it’s clear you were as surprised as I—as the rest of us.”

The coffee’s going to take too long. “Go sit,” Cloud says, and turns around.

Sephiroth tightens his grip on the jamb. His head makes the minutest of movements downward—his eyes fixed on Cloud, clear and lucid for the moment—and then he slowly backs out of the kitchen.

Cloud follows him out at a safe distance, shuts up the volley of questions aimed at him, and explains briefly his original timeline, the way he’d realized that he wouldn’t age, the…world-hopping. He runs through a couple common timeline variations to give them the background for what he’s done in this timeline, and then he talks about that. Both Sephiroth and Vincent twitch a few times when Lucrecia comes up, but it’s Reno who mutters that at least she’d been a consistent ice bitch. Something about leaving Sephiroth _and_ Vincent high and dry. Cloud has to admit that he’s been wondering about that.

But whatever the situation is here, Sephiroth’s longing for his absent mother doesn’t seem to affect him so badly. He merely shoots Reno a deadly look, while it’s Angeal who kicks the man.

“But that doesn’t explain—” Rufus starts, his eyes glittering.

He bites his lip just as Cloud’s shoulders tighten in wariness. This is the young, ambitious, ruthless Rufus Shinra, the one who hasn’t learned the consequences of rule by fear, and Cloud’s killed that one more than once. Cloud doesn’t think he lets that through, but Rufus whitens, rubs his hands over his knees, his legs swaying open for a moment.

Cloud suppresses his next grimace and…tries to explain what he’s done here. Changing Hojo’s research to make it clear that Jenova’s drawbacks outweighed her benefits. Getting rid of Jenova, which he is quite certain he’s done, even though he hadn’t been able to destroy all the existing samples until he’d gotten to Banora. And yes, there are still Jenova cells in the men in front of him, but without her intact brain, they’re dormant and the Lifestream will eventually—

“Except that’s not it,” Vincent says. He looks thoughtful but reluctant, behind that glaze on his eyes. “I…mentioned you to Hojo, when I went back. I don’t think he thought you’d changed his notes—I don’t think anyone put that together until just now, but…”

“I left a sample,” Cloud says. He’s too experienced and too strong for Jenova to hurt these days, but the reactor had been a mess, and Jenova’s body is always…large and oddly-shaped and unwieldy. And he hadn’t really been that careful. He heals fast, and his immune system fights off pretty much any infection. He doesn’t even bother to clean out any wound that doesn’t damage a major muscle these days. “He got it, he heard about me and figured I was some even more superior being. And I have Jenova cells in me but they’re mutated, because I’ve—changed them. So when he used them on you, they basically overrode what you had before, if you had any.”

So he’s Jenova, in this world. He’s not going to lay it out for them like that, but that’s…pretty much it. 

* * *

Cloud gets out of there right after that. There are more things to talk about—he’s always wondered about Reno, and the whole Project G timeline had always been fuzzy so maybe Lazard could be explained, but Tseng and Rufus?—but he doesn’t need to talk about it with them. There. He’s sure he saw Genesis covertly cuffing his own ankle to a table leg to keep from launching after Cloud, which doomed the table, judging from the noises as he left.

He goes and finds Zack. Zack is confused but game, and _definitely_ just hitting on Cloud because he’s _Zack_ , and after making them stop for food and drinks, and complaining about Cloud refusing to give him gambling tips for the next decade, they settle on a Shinra roof somewhere and talk it over. It takes Zack about two seconds to decide that he’s cool with it.

“I don’t think you’re listening,” Cloud says, stirring his straw in his cup. The half-melted ice at the bottom is a lurid purple. He’s kind of forgotten how disturbingly tasty artificial flavoring and a ton of sweetener can be; that kind of thing’s usually the first to go. “I’m _Jenova_.”

“Well, hey, I’m not an expert, but didn’t you say there were giant monsters coming out of the ground and a comet and the Planet trying to destroy humanity?” Zack points out around a mouthful of chocobo nuggets. “Not seein’ ‘em. And this Aeris chick, who you’re totally introducing me to, by the way, she seems like she’d, you know, tell you to your face if her Lifestream wanted to eliminate you.”

Cloud slurps his soda to cover up how weirdly sexual that sounds. He’s beyond inhibitions or hang-ups these days, but there’s still, well, making sense. Which Zack doesn’t, in a really worrying way. He kind of forgot about that about Zack, too. They didn’t usually get that much time to joke around before things went serious.

“But yeah. You’re hundreds of lifetimes old and a serial universe-hopper who’s constantly on the move so you can rearrange people’s destiny and get into their heads and make them do awful, awful, nasty things for you. Yeah, sounds like Jenova.” Zack offers him some nuggets, and when Cloud declines, squirts three different sauce packets over them and then hoovers them up in less than a second. “Except no Great Calamity shit, right? Because I never saw no calamity who’d order a Nitro Cola, Gibbering Grape, without being shitfaced drunk first. And you can’t get shitfaced if you end the world.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t want to end the world,” Cloud says dryly. He moves his straw around to get the last of the soda. “But the whole—”

“Pleasure slave mind control thing?” Zack prompts.

Cloud lets the straw slip from his mouth and stares out over the city. It’s really early on, he thinks. The Planet’s already suffering from the make reactors, of course, but there’s actually time to implement that gradual step-down process one version of Reeve had drawn up. And the Wutai war hasn’t happened yet. And also, he’s pretty fucked up. “Yeah, that thing. See, I’ve had—I’ve had relationships with all of them. Versions of them. And some of them were better than others, but I had the time to—anyway, the point is, I know what I like, and there’s a good reason why I stopped getting involved _that way_ with any of you a long time ago.”

“But you still really want to, right? Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Zack chews as thoughtfully as he can with sauce smeared over his mouth, which is much more thoughtfully than anyone else Cloud knows. “Is it really kinky, this reason?”

Cloud takes a moment to calculate how old Zack is here. “I haven’t minded before, let’s say.”

“Funny, you kind of sound like you mind. Or like you have a problem with not minding, because even though I don’t know you, you know me, and you know what past mes have been like, and you really want to be friends with them even though you’re with me and I already _told_ you we’re cool. Yeah, that’s fucked up,” Zack says. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Also, you know everybody has fantasies about work, right? Nasty, dirty, wish-fulfillment fantasies. Hell, I have a rotation for each hardass instructor. Doesn’t make me a bad person.”

Zack’s really hard to keep alive, for obvious reasons. It’s something Cloud learned to accept a while ago, and to just…take the man for however long Cloud got him. Which includes controlling his own impulses to kill him and to just go with whatever bonkers but deeply insightful things come out of Zack’s mouth. Cloud has no idea how Zack comes up with them and doesn’t want to know.

“You’re thinking thank Gaia they didn’t give ol’ Zack his shots yet so you’re stuck with his brain,” Zack grins. “Aw, Spike. You know you love me.”

“Yeah,” Cloud says, and leans forward on his knees, looking out at the city.

“So you can make them happen,” Zack says after a moment. “Your fantasies. Okay. I’m not dumb and I do care, you know. Some of them are friends you’re talking about, even if—” his cough sounds like _Sephiroth_ “—some of them don’t know it yet. But I feel like we’re looking at this the whole wrong way. I mean, you’ve got a whole…er, career showing how you can get to the same point multiple ways, and it’s really about how you do it, not where you go. By the way, don’t you ever get tired? I mean, is somebody actually _making_ you go straighten everybody out, over and over again? You don’t get vacation time with this gig or what?”

Cloud grimaces.

“Long story?” Zack says. “Because let me tell you, I am completely prepared to skip as many curfews as necessary to help you out, man. We’re friends.”

“Thanks,” Cloud says, sincerely. “But no, not that. More like I just thought of something.”

* * *

He does not introduce Aeris to Zack early. He doesn’t even talk to Aeris. Technically it’d be good manners, seeing as she’s the Planet’s chosen spokesperson and all, but…well, technically he's not talking to the Planet either. He’s talking through it.

Cloud’s in enough of a mood when he gets done that he doesn’t notice right away he’s got company. He flops onto the nearest pew and glowers at the stained glass, and it’s only when Sephiroth drops Masamune that Cloud gets a clue.

By then Sephiroth’s already fallen to one knee, his fists pressed against his temples. When Cloud reaches him, his breathing’s back to normal but he doesn’t rise. His shoulders tense under Cloud’s hands; Cloud ignores it and slides his fingers into Sephiroth’s hair, gently, moving them in small circles over the other man’s scalp. Sephiroth shudders, then goes liquid against him, letting Cloud pull him back and wrap an arm around his throat and lock his head to Cloud’s shoulder.

“I should explain Reunion a little more,” Cloud says. “Damn. The clones had a high attrition rate in the lab, so at this point there have to be…”

“Reunion?” Sephiroth mutters. He sounds dazed, frustrated. Like he’s fighting through molasses. His hand gropes in jerks and spasms across the floor for Masamune. “Clones?”

Cloud uses his foot to push Masamune away from them, then feathers his fingers down to cup the front of Sephiroth’s throat. The man’s growl dies against his hand. He presses against the lump of the voicebox and Sephiroth shivers, grabs at Cloud’s leg and grips it convulsively.

“Later. You tend to take personal revelations about yourself very badly,” Cloud tells Sephiroth. He’s never really managed to change that. Even the sane versions, the Jenova-purged versions, the ones who got _therapy_ , for Gaia’s sake, they’d retained a degree of mental instability. Just bad genetics, Cloud supposes. “A couple things. I need to see what’s left of Hojo’s research, to figure out how this works. I know Jenova up and down, but I’ve never…let myself be researched again, after my first life. Also, my original timeline doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a long story but what you need to know right now is that there’s a good possibility I’m…trying to nest.”

Sephiroth is quiet. Well, his body, anyway. Cloud isn’t doing anything to his mind except tamping down the impulses to move, but Sephiroth still knows he has them and knows why they’re not translating to actions. His thoughts surge, crash against the wall Cloud’s got up between them, and then die down surprisingly quickly. Cloud is refusing to listen to them at the moment, so he doesn’t know why, but in a couple minutes Sephiroth’s mind is as quiet as the rest of him.

Well, almost. There’s this constant niggling at the wall, far too weak to be meaningful, and Sephiroth should have figured out enough by now to know that. But it keeps…pawing at Cloud, and the word that springs to mind is ‘wistful.’ Except he is absolutely not listening to the man.

“Anyway, those notes,” Cloud says.

“We’re collecting them,” Sephiroth tells him. He sounds remarkably composed. He’s relaxed against Cloud, his hand resting lightly on Cloud’s thigh instead of trying to squeeze the blood out of it. “I gave the orders as soon as—the majority of them are archived, however. No one wanted to risk destroying them if a…surprise arose, but no one wanted to read them either.”

Cloud sighs. He doesn’t want to either. Trying to parse Hojo’s insanity is still, in any version, a mind-boggling, mind-numbing task.

“We’re having some quarters made up for you,” Sephiroth adds after a moment, considerably less certain. “Until all the papers are assembled.”

It’s on the tip of Cloud’s tongue to turn him down. Cloud does actually let go of Sephiroth’s neck and push him off. He gets to his feet and stares at the far end of the church—the roof’s not broken yet, so there’s no pool but there’s already a leak and a resulting puddle. Just deep enough to shimmer in the half-light and irritate the hell out of Cloud.

He sighs. He is going to need somewhere to sleep and eat, and since he’s in Midgar he’d better figure out how far along Deepground is, and how many damn clones are running around. “All right,” he says, and turns back to find Sephiroth still kneeling at his feet, staring up at him. 

Cloud sighs again. This is going to drive him crazy.

* * *

Fell into a reactor, got recruited after, tested out, is what they settle on for explaining Cloud. He gets a First-Class SOLDIER’s quarters, one mission assignment a week (necessary to placate Finance), and all the mad scientist records he can read and then some.

Zack gets detailed to be his assistant. This does not mean that Zack helps him sort through Hojo’s rambling, occasionally horrifying, frequently ridiculous files. This means that Zack cheerfully makes up lies and excuses to help integrate him into Shinra without sticking out like a big, immortal, super-powered sore thumb. This means Zack abuses the hell out of Cloud’s security clearance to spy on people, partly so they can keep the public displays of submission to a minimum, but also just because it’s Zack. And Reno, his only equal, can’t come anywhere near Cloud, and of course Zack takes full advantage of that.

And this means that Zack runs interference for Cloud when Cloud’s just not bothering to go through the formal requisition process for supplies, or is breaking and entering into Shinra experimental facilities nobody is supposed to know about yet, or is sneaking back into his quarters covered in disgusting slime. At least, this is what Zack’s supposed to be doing.

Vincent jerks off Cloud’s couch, teeters briefly, and then ends up on his hands and knees. It’s rough on him but Cloud’s control is a little shot from five hours of continuous underground fighting. Cloud just shuts the window and tries to take the most direct line to the shower that he can.

He pauses at seeing extra bars of soap lined up on the edge of the tub. There are also several small bottles around the sink that weren’t around in the morning, and a haz-mat bag hanging off the back of the door. It’s weird. But it’s helpful.

Cloud strips off, stuffs his ruined clothes in the haz-mat bag, and goes through three bars of soap before the water’s running clear in the drain. When he gets out of the shower, the haz-mat bag is gone and the coffee-maker is whirring in the kitchen. There’s a new set of clothes laid out for him. He puts them on and pads out to find Vincent flicking through the papers Cloud’s spread all over the kitchen table.

Vincent’s careful to replace the sheets in the exact position and order that Cloud had them. He has his jacket and tie off, and the harsh fluorescent light casts shadows over his back that shift like wings when he moves his shoulders. “Fair was called away on an emergency mission,” he says quietly, not looking up. “I said I’d cover.”

The coffee is good. The chair is even better. Nothing special, just smooth metal and a thin pad on the seat, but after the night Cloud’s had, he’s just glad to put up his feet.

They’re halfway to the seat opposite him when a pair of hands catches them mid-air. Vincent looks at him, his fingers wrapped loosely around Cloud’s ankles, the red of his eyes contrasting starkly with the slow shrink and expansion of his pupils. Then his head goes down. He braces Cloud’s feet against his knees, covers the back of the right one with his left hand and begins to walk the knuckles of his left up and down the arch of Cloud’s foot.

Cloud was working on redrawing Reeve’s old energy resource transition plan before the alarms he set had told him it was time to pop underground. He picks up the unfinished draft and stares at it for a few minutes. He needs to get Reeve on it soon, if only because Cloud’s not any more of an engineer than he was in his first life—mechanic, sure; world-changer, absolutely—but he doesn’t really want to have to _explain_ it to Reeve so he’s trying to get down as much as he can remember, in the hopes that Reeve can take it from there.

He mutters to himself when he works. Old habit. And hearing voices answer him when he’s not expecting anybody—also old habit. So it takes a while for him to pick up on the fact that he and Vincent are having a conversation.

Vincent’s worked Cloud’s right foot to a pleasantly warm bundle of loose flesh by that point, and is well on the way to converting Cloud’s left foot. He’s giving Cloud some good insight into Hojo, so after a brief pause (and Vincent’s fingers stuttering over Cloud’s toes), Cloud just keeps talking to him. The foot massage seems to be giving their link enough to keep it quiet, so might as well get some answers that aren’t written in crabbed handwriting or constantly interrupted by scientific jargon Cloud’s got to look up.

When Vincent had gone back, he’d managed to keep from getting kidnapped by Hojo again, but Lucrecia surviving Sephiroth’s birth with relatively decent health had made Hojo too valuable. So the two had gotten ordered to a truce by the President, Lucrecia had still not run into Vincent’s arms, and Hojo had gotten his own personal security guard, separate from the Turks, for a while. Right up till they’d figured out that Lucrecia was incapable of having more children, at which point she’d had a breakdown and left Sephiroth in Vincent’s apartment and taken off for the Northern Crater. Vincent wasn’t giving Sephiroth back, for a couple reasons but definitely because Hojo wanted him back, and so the President had renegotiated the truce to give Hojo access for testing and treatment but Vincent for general childcare.

Explained why the Turks and SOLDIERs seemed considerably friendlier in this world, Cloud thinks. The whole barrenness issue—probably Jenova’s fault. She had some bizarre hang-ups about motherhood and children, even for an alien lifeform with a lunatic dedication to destruction. And Lucrecia wasn’t likely to have any of Cloud’s cells, Vincent tells him. She’d been very annoyed about Hojo dropping his interest in Jenova once he’d learned about Cloud.

“It wasn’t her project anymore,” Vincent says, his mouth twisting. He tips one of his shoulders, his hair slanting across his cheek. His eyes rise slightly to brush Cloud’s, then fall. “I should’ve listened to you.”

And then he’s broadcasting sexual attraction, longstanding attraction mixed in with a lot of guilt and resignation. He doesn’t think Cloud’s going to do anything. In fact, he thinks Cloud’s already rejected him, twice, just because Cloud didn’t feel like stopping him from going back for Lucrecia. This whole depressive guilt thing, Cloud thinks, staring at him in exasperation. If it’s not one unattainable woman, it’s…Cloud. And Cloud’s already Jenova. He’s not going to be Lucrecia, too.

So he fucks Vincent over the table. He ties Vincent’s hands behind his back with Vincent’s belt and shirt, and leaves the blue trousers puddled around Vincent’s ankles. This Vincent isn’t nearly as scarred as most of the others, and he bruises easier. Cloud leaves a scatter of red suck-marks over the top of his back before he bites Vincent’s throat, behind the pulses, and he hears demons in the cry Vincent makes then. But it’s different, the way Vincent arches under him, the hot swirl of Chaos under the man’s skin, under Cloud’s mouth. Not fighting Cloud, the demons.

He drops back into the chair when he’s spent himself. Looks at the naked man spread over the table, at the red marks on Vincent’s back and arms and hips, at the soft curve of his buttocks, the slack fall of his fingers over them. Vincent’s hole is slick and flushed, clutching when Cloud touches the rim with one finger, even though Vincent’s mind tells him it’s _sore, sore, hurts, hot, sore_. Vincent shudders when Cloud presses his mouth over it.

But it’s when Cloud takes Vincent’s hand, the one that should be encased in metal, and bites the side of the palm, that Vincent really falls apart on him. It’s like cracking a geode, what it’s like in Cloud’s head. Just…all open, shining and jagged, and when Cloud reaches in, all that pretty crystal melts for him. 

Cloud’s got good reasons why he doesn’t do this, but they’re not really about it’s _wrong_. He’s gotten over that, at this point.

* * *

Zack drags himself in somewhere around the early morning, and wakes up when he finds Cloud sprawled out on the couch with Vincent Valentine curled up next to him, head in Cloud’s lap, dressed only in a badly-abused white buttondown shirt. Which is not buttoned, which is rucked up over Vincent’s ass, and which does have its collar peaked off Vincent’s neck so Cloud can splay one hand under it and over Vincent’s back, absently tease the sensitive nerves between the shoulderblades and the lines of Vincent’s nape. It’s one way to get through Hojo’s damned handwriting.

“So…” Zack finally says.

Vincent’s awake. He’s been watching the door since the elevator down the hall chimed. He hasn’t even twitched, even mentally. He’s done some calculations about likelihood of enemies, escape routes and sightlines, and the clean interlocking of his thoughts feels nice, like the purr of a properly-oiled engine. He’s watching Zack now, but his muscles are loose and relaxed under Cloud’s hand. His gun is under the couch but he’s not even really thinking about it.

“Jenova’s always been really terrible at strategy, and even with Sephiroth, she kept crushing his tactical maneuvers because she didn’t get that it wasn’t the same as defiance. I think that’s probably a big reason why he broke with her. Anyway, I pointed that out in the changes I made to Hojo’s notes, that it’s one thing to have an integrated army and another to have a crappy hive mind. And I’ve thought a lot about it, during a lot of fights, so I guess it could’ve gotten coded into me,” Cloud says. He uncrosses his legs, catches a file that’s about to slip off, and then recrosses them as Vincent presses his head against Cloud’s belly. “Also, that thing I’ve got for Reeve? It’s done.”

Zack blinks, then smiles tiredly. “Well done, sir, but no banana. You’re not going to distract Zack Fair that easy. You _totally_ owe me.”

“For what?” Cloud says.

“Besides being cool with the kinky domination plan of world conquest?” Zack says airily, turning away. The first thing he did when he got his assignment was get them to knock down the wall between a closet and the second bathroom, and make a miniscule bedroom for himself. “Keeping Sephiroth off your back till you two crazy kids straighten things out.”

Vincent stirs uneasily. He grabs at the soothing tendril of thought Cloud sends his way, all surprise and gratitude and fervent appreciation—still insecure, Cloud notes—but still nudges at Cloud, thinking about morning meetings and work distribution and the long, convoluted way he’s going to have to take to get back to his apartment.

What he says is: “You have to understand that I’m not Sephiroth’s father.”

Sometimes that’s been true, sometimes not. In this world it’s not; Cloud learned that when he was keeping Vincent’s unconscious body company in the mansion. And while Vincent may have been a preferable guardian over Hojo, Cloud’s known enough iterations to know he’s not inclined towards raising children.

What Cloud says is: “Just bring a couple changes when you come back tonight. You saw I don’t even use the closet.”

Vincent doesn’t start at the part about coming back. He takes too long to start thinking about where he can stash a spare pair of guns, but Cloud will work on that.

* * *

Deepground takes a couple weeks to handle. Eventually Cloud has to get the Turks involved, if only for structural stability—they would build the damn labs under critical ground-level utilities—but that’s relatively easy when Cloud’s chaining their leader to the bed and fucking him senseless every night.

The requisition order for sound-proofing materials comes back with Sephiroth’s rejection on it. Zack thinks it’s funny. Cloud thinks it’s pointless, gets Vincent to get Rude to get it, and it ends up a discussion point on their weekly conference call.

Conference calls are more than a little problematic with Reeve still mostly in the dark, but the others insist on having some idea of what Cloud’s doing and what he’s found out. Meeting in person is out, not just for the sake of everyone’s pride but also because it’s a serious fighting handicap. Cloud knows he can defeat everyone and everything on the Planet, but he still only has two hands, and he usually needs both of them to use his sword. And he’s long since tired of people getting snatched off while he’s in the middle of a battle.

So they do calls, wherein Cloud fills them in on what he’s found out from Hojo’s handwriting and does not tell anyone except Zack and Vincent and to a certain extent, Tseng, about how he’s still redoing their timeline, and wherein they ask questions and get frustrated and tell him how he’s ruining their lives. He…has a hard time caring about that last part. Sure, it’s true. And sure, it’s true that these versions haven’t done anything to him. But he knows, in great and excruciating variation, how it could be worse for them.

“He doesn’t mean that,” Zack says soothingly, holding down the ‘mute’ button while Genesis rants about goddesses and dreams. “He’s just working through his issues.”

Vincent snorted, the air puffing softly against Cloud’s thigh. He’d shown up a few hours earlier than normal, and then dropped to sit, in immaculate blue suit, between Cloud’s legs as if it was simply routine. “Hewley is running you ragged trying to keep him and Rhapsodos too busy to visit Banora.”

“They’ve been trying?” Cloud says. Mostly just curious. Whether or not the killings in Banora occur do not, he’s found out, have much of an effect on anything. Angeal has plenty of people who mean things to him, who can end up dying, and the worst of Genesis’ madness always comes first, insulating him from the emotional fallout of his murders. “Huh. I should—”

“Shit, we’re back on,” Zack hisses, lifting his finger off the mute button.

Cloud sighs as he hears Sephiroth’s deep voice rumble over the speakers, complaining about the requisition order. Sephiroth thinks they’re doing experiments in Cloud’s quarters. At least the baffling in between the suites is working, Cloud thinks, and just tells Sephiroth to swing by when Zack’s in, so he can see for himself. Cloud’s going to be out handling his required solo mission, clearing out some of the monsters under the Plate and hopefully visiting Aeris at the same time.

Sephiroth takes him up on the offer. Of course, before that, things have gotten complicated. Usually it’s Rude or Elena who trails Cloud these days—Vincent has reservations about Tseng and Reno that have less to do with letting them near Cloud and more about Rufus—and Elena, surprisingly, is fairly likable. This one is still learning and she’s apparently been told that Cloud’s a good role model. She gets in the way sometimes but since she’s noisy, she’s easier to save than Rude.

But neither of them are available this time, so Cloud gets Tseng. So Cloud can’t go see Aeris because he’s not going to apologize for hijacking Aeris’ connection to the Planet in front of the man, and so he stays on the mission longer than he planned. Cleans up some Deepground leftovers. Accidentally ends up at the bottom of a deep, narrow hole, which requires Tseng to get the chopper and some rope to help him out, and when he climbs into the chopper, just barely has time to grab the controls before Tseng passes out.

He parks the chopper on an abandoned building in one of the more desolate stretches of the slums, and then thinks that Tseng needs to wake the fuck up so Cloud can figure this out without violating his mind.

Tseng wakes up right then, choking, and then curls himself tightly around Cloud. And so Cloud finds out that Tseng was part of the team that ended up in Nibelheim, trying to move Hojo and Lucrecia and Sephiroth and Vincent back to Midgar without any one of them dying, and Tseng was the go-between for Vincent and the labs for a while, when they were trying to figure out Vincent’s new capabilities without actually being stupid enough to force an angry, enhanced professional assassin into the labs. Hojo probably noticed Tseng at Nibelheim, and slipped him a few jabs of Cloud cells when he was picking up Vincent’s test results.

Reno, Tseng explains, was tested for Mako compatibility at one point, and most likely got infected that way. After him, Tseng and Vincent made sure to isolate Turk recruits from Hojo as soon as possible. Lazard and Rufus were infected by freelance hitmen, Lazard because Hojo was trying to circumvent SOLDIER’s barriers on accessing his “test subjects” and Rufus during some complicated internal politicking that Cloud frankly doesn’t care to follow. Rufus knew before Cloud showed up; Lazard didn’t. Apparently, Lazard’s been stonewalling everybody since he found out.

Cloud doesn’t really care about that either. It bleeds through to Tseng and suddenly Cloud gets a headful of Tseng’s pent-up fears. That he’s in the dark, that he’s excluded from the decisions, that after so many years of putting up with Vincent’s problems, Rufus’ problems, and pretending he wasn’t going home to the occasional odd episode too, he was expendable. That he saw Cloud _first_ , but that he was always going to be stuck a step behind.

It’s always been a real question whether Rufus was controlling the Turks or whether they were controlling him. This…symbiosis thing, Cloud remembers, dragging up a memory from several worlds ago, Reeve drawing diagrams for him. But anyway, whichever one, Tseng’s always had no problem with taking orders. Cloud’s even accused him on occasion of delighting in it.

He didn’t really mean it like this, like laying Tseng out on the bottom of the chopper and cuffing his hands to a convenient ring-bolt with his own handcuffs, but this Tseng damn well does mean it like that. And it does make a weird kind of sense, with this time period. Rufus is still an unmitigated asshole at this point, if a clever one, and one hasn’t learned to really _appreciate_ good service even though he does value it, and the President is…not worth it. Tseng was already disobeying orders with Aeris in other worlds.

In this world, seems like he’s been walking closer to the company line with Aeris. But he’s willing to lie when the PHS crackles, when Rude’s asking why they’re delayed and he says slight damage to the chopper, fixable on-site, while Cloud is idly circling his nipple with a fingernail. It’s dark brown, pretty, easy to make stiffen. Cloud thinks about gold rings and Tseng bites through his lip, orders Rude to get back to work.

Tseng spends most of his time these days cleaning up messes. He gets tired, wants to just lie down, lie back, get his legs hauled apart and pushed up over Cloud’s shoulders, wants to just stop being perfectly unseen and get fucking _caught_. He looks good that way, begs so easily, bends so quickly when Cloud pulls that thick tail of hair. He unfurls in Cloud’s mind like one of those trick origami, just a tug and then the whole thing comes apart.

Cloud flies the chopper most of the way back, with Tseng still cuffed to the floor, disheveled, his pants down and come drying on his shirt. Tseng has a thing about being seen, like how Vincent doesn’t, courtesy of Vincent’s time in the lab, Cloud supposes. He puts the chopper on automatic for a moment and uses his enhanced speed to snap the cuffs, then gets in the passenger seat and watches Tseng yank at the controls, scramble to get the remains of the cuffs unlocked from his wrists, tidy his clothes, hide the stains. The whole time Tseng is skittering around the back of Cloud’s head, letting his nerves out there because he can’t let them out in his own head. Just after they land, Cloud pulls him over and kisses him hard enough to reopen the bite on his lip, and he is so sweetly grateful in his thoughts.

So they’re late back, and for some reason Sephiroth is still in Cloud’s rooms, arguing with Zack about the half-written write-up of Cloud’s findings that Cloud had left for him. Cloud sends one around once a week, so they have something to talk about on the damn conference calls. Sephiroth doesn’t think it holds together, which of course it doesn’t, since Cloud’s not done writing it. And then Sephiroth shuts up and stares, and Cloud has to jerk Tseng through the doorway by the arm.

“You look like…er, shit,” Zack says, hastily changing the ending. He gestures at Cloud’s pants. “I thought you were just killing monsters.”

“Ran into a clone and it fell into a hole,” Cloud mutters. “Still not finding the advanced ones. If I have to go to Nibelheim for Kadaj, of all people, I’m going to—”

“Kadaj?” Sephiroth says. He follows Cloud and Tseng into the bathroom. “Is this another personal revelation I’m going to take badly?”

Cloud lets Tseng go and Tseng sits on the toilet, putting Cloud between him and Sephiroth. He takes out his PHS and begins scrolling through his messages. 

“You take a lot of things badly,” Cloud says, rinsing his face. “I don’t keep track anymore.”

Sephiroth—this Sephiroth—tends to whipsaw between suppressed rage and strange attempts at kindness. “If you need more resources, you only have to ask,” he says. “We’re—we’re willing to support you. It’s only…”

“When I think it works to do a remote operation, I’ll let you know,” Cloud says. He blocks the wave of emotions from Sephiroth, as always; the man’s touchy enough without feeling like Cloud’s deliberately taking advantage of his forced transparency. “You all feel something when I kill a clone, and that’s from far off. I’m still not sure how this works through them, and look, realistically, if you seize up in the middle of a fight, that’s a huge problem.”

“I suppose you’ve noticed Vin—Valentine’s nightmares,” Sephiroth says, back to angry. “The issue with the clones. We worked that out a few years ago, when Hojo decided to destroy some old samples without telling anyone. We could have brought it up if you’d asked.”

Cloud hunches over the sink, the water running over his hands. He does tend to discount what the others know, what with him having all these different outcomes rattling around in his head. It’s not always the best thing to do; it’s blown up on him in the past, though usually coming from Tifa or Zack. “Oh. Sorry.”

Sephiroth just stands there. Then Cloud straightens up and Tseng hands him a towel and Sephiroth stalks off. Cloud rubs himself dry, feeling a weight settle against his leg. He puts his hand down and runs it over Tseng’s head, gets his fingers caught in the hair tie. After a moment, he pulls it loose. Then he goes back to wiping at the dried blood on his arms, Tseng sitting on the floor by him, leaning against Cloud’s leg as he starts answering calls.

* * *

Tseng keeps his own rooms, but leaves a spare set of clothes in the closet, a gun in a drawer in Cloud’s kitchen, and some throwing knives around the living room. Cloud’s going to have to get more furniture just to hide all the weapons.

Vincent walks in on them the same night as the mission, because Cloud’s trying to go through the damn records and figure out where the triplets should be right now and Tseng’s helping, seeing as the Turks (now that Cloud’s thought to ask) have maps of Shinra hidey-holes and hidden facilities that Cloud’s never had to know about, since they weren’t intact by the time he rolled around in previous timelines. Tseng also has his hair loose and his shirt untucked, because yes, Cloud does have a thing for white buttondowns, and he and Vincent share a long look as Vincent stands on the threshold of the room.

Then Vincent comes in, settles himself on Cloud’s other side, and asks what they’re doing. They do something when Cloud steps out for a second to get some water, but it doesn’t leave marks, and there’s just the faintest ripple in their thoughts. Mostly exasperation on Tseng’s end, maybe some reserved pleasure on Vincent’s. It’s not that common to see the two of them working together—working towards the same goal, yes, but working _together_. No. Cloud always assumed that they were just too similar. You can’t have two heads of something like the Turks.

But Vincent’s always been more of a field operative, while Tseng’s at home in back corridors and boardroom corners. It mostly sorts out. The only complication is that Tseng’s primary role is supposed to be guarding Rufus, and Rufus hasn’t exactly come round to the new reality yet, so Tseng has to switch Reno in before he can start coming over every night.

“Besides, it’s already upset the balance that I’m here,” Vincent observes, lying naked next to Cloud. He stretches himself when he sees Cloud looking at him. 

It’s…a different kind of display. But he’s always been oddly flashy for a recluse, clinging to the red cloak, leaving that distinctive metal gauntlet uncovered and shining gold. Maybe that’s one of the things the coffin twisted up, that unhurried sensual pleasure Vincent takes in letting himself sprawl out for Cloud. His mind murmurs contentedly and his throat makes pleased little sounds as Cloud traces the ligation marks on his forearm. No gauntlet, but some heavy scar tissue from surgeries to repair nerve damage.

“The SOLDIERs,” Vincent clarifies. “Sephiroth doesn’t like that you don’t talk to him.”

Cloud can’t help rolling his eyes. Every single world, without fail, the man can’t live without attention. “He told you that?”

“We’re friends, of a kind,” Vincent says after a moment. He curls closer to Cloud. “We didn’t come to truly know each other until after he was an adult. It was…necessary to have some distance, I think.”

It’s nice that they were already talking here, Cloud thinks absently. He’s never run across a…really strong relationship between the two. A respectful one, occasionally. One fraught with exhausting emotions on one or both sides, all the time. One less thing to wonder about. “Well, sending them to deal with the clones instead—I don’t know. I’m starting to think the clones feel different not just because they’re underdeveloped. And Sephiroth. I don’t know. I need more time with Hojo’s files.”

Vincent doesn’t really like it, much as he understands that it’s necessary. He has this lingering fear that Cloud’s going to get sucked into the damned things the way Lucrecia was, and it edges to the surface every time he sees Hojo’s handwriting in front of Cloud. But he does stop when Cloud touches him.

* * *

Cloud’s working theory is that the Jenova cells in the others haven’t been completely eliminated by his own, so Hojo was able to get secondary samples. Sephiroth’s the biggest repository of them, and now that he’s aware, he’s able to stay angry enough to have substantive—if very short—conversations with Cloud before he ends up on his knees. Genesis and Angeal are next, but since they suffered degradation with just Jenova in them, Cloud’s guessing that his cells had an easier time taking over. Guessing since he hasn’t seen either of them since that first meeting.

The clones are going to depend on what Hojo got in the starting sample. If he got one with pure Jenova cells, then maybe there’s a problem.

“It’s not very far along, if that’s the case,” Aeris says with a frown. “The Planet has been very quiet. You haven’t seen Tifa or your mother yet, Cloud.”

“They deserve a life without worrying over me,” Cloud says. It’s true. It’s also just easy to say. He’s got other things on his mind right now, and anyway, he just…he knows his mother, he loves her, but she’s not going to be able to deal with the fact that he’s not really her son. And he doesn’t want to deal with trying to pretend for her sake, which he’ll end up doing if they meet.

Aeris hums and tugs at a fistful of weeds. Half of them come up and half don’t; the fleshy white of a taproot is visible. “If you say so, soldier. Uf!”

Cloud sighs and reaches over to give her a hand. The weed tears free and he holds it up so Aeris can carefully salvage the precious topsoil clinging to its roots. It’s funny, the weeds being there. You’d think with the fight to grow anything at all, the Planet would pick and choose.

“It’s about balance, Cloud,” Aeris says, with just a touch of reproach in her voice. “Everything deserves at least a chance. The Planet doesn’t judge when it doesn’t have to.”

“You need a little weed in your life?” Cloud says, and smiles when Aeris laughs. He rubs his palm against his hip, trying to work out the prickles the weed stem had left, and Tseng hands him a tube of ointment and a handkerchief.

Aeris flushes bright red, even though Tseng’s just sitting on the edge of the garden, head buried in his PHS as he tries to remotely convince Reeve the energy transition plans they sent over aren’t a trap. He does have his tie pulled out a few inches and the top two buttons of his collar undone, but the marks on his neck aren’t really _that_ bad. She should see the ones…she flushes even more and throws the next weed at Cloud.

“So, about…” Cloud ducks, then gestures awkwardly “…I’m not trying to…take it away or anything.”

“Oh, Cloud, as if I’m really jealous about there being _a whole other_ person in the world who can talk via Lifestream,” Aeris says, rolling her eyes. “It’s nice to have a little company, even if you don’t talk nearly as much as I’d like. But speaking of that, have you heard anything from the Planet lately? I’m not kidding when I say it’s been quiet.”

Tseng looks up then, picking up on Cloud’s discomfort. He goes to get up, then settles back when Cloud sits down by him. His tie flops over Cloud’s hand and Cloud absently twists it around his fingers, then lifts his arm when Tseng’s head nudges him. Tseng puts his head on Cloud’s knee and half-closes his eyes when Cloud, tie still wrapped around his fingers, puts his hand on Tseng’s shoulder.

“I was pretty mad, the last time,” Cloud finally says. “Besides, I didn’t think I could talk to it or you if I’m not here, or in the church. I can’t hear you at all. Are you saying you can hear me all the time?”

“Well, no, not really. I know you’re around, but there’s this…” Aeris waves her hands in circles around her head “…this static. And it’s getting louder. You really should talk to the rest of them.”

Cloud looks at her. “You know what happens, don’t you?”

“But it gets better!” Aeris says. “Tseng’s not having a fit in the middle of the street now. We’ve been out here a good half-hour and he keeps pulling up his sleeve to look at that rash around his wrist—” Tseng jerks his head up against the tie, then lets Cloud pull him back down “—but he’s just waiting for us to finish talking.”

“She has a point,” Tseng says. He’s still embarrassed, cheeks pink, moving like he wants to sit up, but Cloud keeps the tie wound too short to allow that. In Cloud’s head he’s squirming, nonsense about Aeris having just bad experiences with restraints and him getting careless if she’d noticed and Cloud just plucks out the memory of last night and shoves it to the front of Tseng’s mind. It doesn’t matter if Aeris doesn’t understand, is Cloud’s point, and Tseng’s shame abruptly melts away, just like his body suddenly drapes itself against Cloud’s leg. “It does get easier once you’ve accepted it.”

“Accepted?” Cloud says.

Tseng shrugs. “Vincent wouldn’t have let me go with you on that mission if I’d still been fighting it.”

Aeris smiles triumphantly, and hands Cloud a bouquet she’s just put together. “See?” she says. “You just need to have a little trust.”

* * *

“Yeah, I see your point, Spike, but don’t you think you’re overreacting a little?” Zack says, stuffing another handful of chili fries into his mouth. “So they’re still running around doing their own thing behind your back. So they’re not brainwashed and that was a whole big kinda moral thing for you, right? Personally, I’d be more worried about the fact that Vincent Valentine, as broody as he is deadly, actually got off his ass and matchmaked. And not only that, but helped out a buddy.”

Cloud suppresses the urge to slap the back of Zack’s head and just grabs a couple fries before Zack eats them all. Honestly, he’s not a junk food person, but he knows they’ll probably have to give this stuff up during the energy transition, maybe for good if Reeve doesn’t take a goddamn hint, and there’s just something about knowing that. Like he needs to do something. But he’s not going to—to preserve chili fries, just for the sake of chili fries, so he’ll just make sure he eats this world’s version while he can. “You didn’t notice the romanticism of getting shot trying to save your true love from a horrible fate?”

“Well, seeing as I then got to know the guy who used toddler through pre-adolescent Sephiroth as inter-departmental leverage…hey, hey, relax.” Zack surrenders the frozen orange whip. “Valentine got his head out of his ass eventually, I’ll give him that, and he was a big help during the whole Hojo death mess. Anyway, I totally agree with Aeris and Tseng. You’re a drug, a…a siren lure, and my idiot friends are resisting their rightful—”

Zack’s impression of Genesis is always hilarious, but he also gets damn loud when he’s doing it and they’re on a busy street. Cloud might be this world’s Jenova but he doesn’t need the entire population of Sector Seven to know about it. And that’s when Cloud spots a familiar storefront.

He drags Zack into it, tells him it’ll be his second-favorite store in about three months, and lets Zack scold him for acting like a time-traveling know-it-all again because obviously, with that kind of vibrator display, this was his absolute all-time numero fucking _uno_ favorite store.

Cloud refrains from mentioning the Wutai import place Zack is going to discover right before the Wutai war launches and shuts it down, and lets Zack blow his newly augmented salary—Finance finally decided it was easier to jack that up than keep plowing through Zack’s idea of an expense report—while he slips out the back of the store. The real reason they’re wandering around is that Cloud’s trying to locate an old utility hatch and check out some suspicious heightened activity.

He’s almost positive at this point that he’s rooted out the main Deepground forces, but clones keep popping up. And they’re really bad clones, too. Shinra’s got a lot of faults, but shoddy evil scientist work—as distinguished from spectacularly miscalculated evil scientist work—generally hasn’t been one of them and it’s been nagging at Cloud.

The capacitor behind the hatch looks fine, if oddly clean for something that hasn’t been inspected in two years. Still, there’s nothing for Cloud to go on, so he just goes back up to the store and drags Zack to the check-out counter before the man buys out the whole stock. As it is, Zack has too many bags so he makes Cloud take a couple.

They’re about to head out when a Shinra maintenance van pulls into the street. Cloud feels clones and somebody else, someone who panics and broadcasts both a plea for help and a wild attempt to slap Cloud away.

“Hey, Spike,” Zack says, looking concerned. “Headache?”

Cloud jumps up on the roof of the store and goes across and the van’s parked right by the utility hatch. A clone comes out and tries to kill him.

He kills it but the van takes off. So he jumps on the van. So the driver is an idiot, and so are the passengers, because they decide to start shooting at Cloud through the roof. So he peels the roof off with the help of his swords and kills them, except at that point they’re lost in some slum wasteland because nobody was steering. He kills the engine in time to coast them to a gentle smash in a pile of refuse, then jumps down into the back of the van and has a look.

The only other living person in there is half-curled into one corner, zip-ties locking his arms behind him, with a black cloth bag over his head. Cloud sighs and only then realizes that one of Zack’s bags somehow got hooked onto his belt. He yanks it off and drops it, and then pulls the bag off of Lazard’s head while Lazard’s still flinching in fright.

Lazard doesn’t have his glasses. He looks a lot more like Rufus that way, strangely enough. Same way of shuttering his eyes and pretending reality isn’t actually reality. “Strife?”

“Clones?” Cloud says, and just then he has half a dozen of them prickling on the edge of his consciousness. If they’re the Jenova-based ones, the degraded ones, then they’re probably within sight. He can’t feel them as far out, probably because she’s gone so there’s no central node to run through. “Damn. Clones.”

“What?” Lazard tries to sit up and loses his balance from having his hands bound.

He tips forward, wrenches to avoid Cloud and instead ends up with his cheek pressed against Cloud’s boot. Cloud hears metal clatter in the distance and begins snapping his sword together. Lazard curses quietly and pushes his head up Cloud’s boot-laces. His breath worms between the laces and the tongue under it, and starts warming up Cloud’s sock. He shuffles forward on his knees when Cloud moves his foot back, pulling his shoulders back so tightly that Cloud’s surprised they don’t dislocate.

A bullet whistles overhead. Cloud ducks down, then grabs Lazard by the neck and shoves him up against the back of the driver’s seat. It’s not a lot of cover, but it’s all they have for the moment. Cloud still can’t pinpoint the damn clones, but he knows that they’re too far out for him to just jump out of the van blind, and Lazard is swearing at him and trying to force his face into Cloud’s neck and this is _exactly_ how Cloud doesn’t want to fight. 

“I don’t want to either,” Cloud snaps, and he bites the side of Lazard’s jaw.

Lazard shudders. He’s still broadcasting but for one second his mind is just a steady buzz of lust, easy to push aside, and that gives Cloud a chance to twist past him and reach for the keys.

The ignition doesn’t work. They probably broke the engine when they crashed. Lazard is moving against Cloud again, his hips rocking slightly. “I don’t even know why I’m _involved_ ,” he says.

“Yes, you do,” Cloud says, sitting back. He tries to concentrate on the clones. “You did the moment you walked in Shinra’s doors. You can’t just be surprised now that that backfired, and don’t start on wanting to change it from within. Honestly, you really wanted to do that, you would’ve killed the President by now.”

Lazard’s eyes are dazed but he’s still fighting. “I—have we had this conversation before? You—you sound—”

“Like I’m taking it personally?” Cloud doesn’t really want to, hates doing this, but he reaches out and tries to see if he’s got any pull with the clones’ minds. Some of them feel a little—no, that’s just shock. They all hate his guts. “I don’t. But yeah, we’ve had this conversation before. A lot. It’s just really frustrating that every single time, you just don’t _get_ that you don’t want to be the damn President. And if you’re not going to run things, then what?”

“I _do_ ,” Lazard says heatedly. He pulls himself up, then slips and suddenly he’s straddling Cloud’s leg. His mind skips haphazardly around, talking about how this is humiliating and terrifying and he doesn’t know what to do, he has no idea what he’s doing, he just knows he’s in way over his head and oh, God, Cloud’s right.

And oh, the clones just went a little haywire. Still hate Cloud’s guts, but they just—don’t know what to do with all the…Cloud grabs Lazard under the jaw and kisses him hard, and the clones wail and fumble around and get closer to them without meaning to. It just confuses them, that much unstructured emotion, and they don’t have Jenova to filter it all out for them.

Lazard moans and his mind whites out and that’s when Cloud pulls off and slaps him. It’s a quick explanation, while Lazard’s getting over the slap: there are clones, they’re hostile, they get messed up when Lazard gets aroused, this is going to make it a lot easier for Cloud to kill them off.

To his credit, Lazard doesn’t ask why Cloud can’t be the one to be the distraction. He does ask if they’re going to wait for the clones to pile in on them, his mind shaking with fear, something about something Hojo showed him once, in warning, and Cloud remembers Zack’s bag. It’s got a couple massagers, nipple clamps, lubricant in flavors Cloud knows they’re going to lose. Lazard makes an inarticulate noise but his mind is coherent enough. He thinks Cloud always shows up to a fight with a bag of sex toys.

Cloud slaps the memory of Zack buying them at Lazard and then they both look at each other for a moment. Maybe it was the visit with Aeris—she doesn’t have the same hang-ups about mental sharing, doesn’t mind it at all, just is like taking tea with her—but Cloud didn’t notice slipping into Lazard’s head. And he’s in there now, not just gritting his teeth against Lazard’s shouting, and weirdly, Lazard’s embarrassed to find out he was doing that.

He’s embarrassed to find himself staring at the prostate massager, watching while Cloud hurriedly smears it with lube, but his mind is just twitching with nerves, not trying to push Cloud out. He backs up against the driver’s seat, his legs unconsciously spreading even as he digs in his heels, and then gets all shocked when Cloud runs a bullet massager up the inside of his leg. He’s…really not shoving Cloud out. He knows he could try but he’s doing all this rationalizing about exigent circumstances and the likelihood that he’d fail and get them killed and he really, really likes it when Cloud bites his throat and presses the bullet massager against his nipple.

A cascade of memories comes down. Some friend from the slums Lazard had to cut ties with, deliberately has had buried in obscurity, first love regret had to be done. Confiscated objects from SOLDIER lockers, one memorable hazing incident he investigated, half a bottle of whiskey to get through that write-up, amusement and jealousy in equal mixes. The way Reno touches his half-brother on the arm and laughs, the way Angeal drops his arm around even random soldiers. Locking his office door while feeling inexplicably stimulated, frightened and enjoying it at the same time, walking down the empty lonely corridor to the bathroom afterward.

Cloud’s working through it, letting the images wash through him, occasionally making a note, but he’s not getting lost in it. He’s got plenty of practice at working around mental disruptions.

He gets Lazard’s trousers open and down around his knees, gets the prostate massager into the man as quickly as is comfortable, using the other massager against Lazard’s scrotum and perineum to distract him. The clones are in his head too, mindlessly hysterical, and closer. Cloud almost forgets to wipe the lube off his hands before he picks up First Tsurugi again.

After that, it’s a quick slaughter. He kills an early scavenging monster while he’s at it, and then lopes back to the van.

Lazard’s pressed up against the driver’s seat so tightly it’s like he’s trying to merge with it. His legs are wide open and his hips are angled so that the end of the prostrate massager is braced against the floor and Cloud can see how it’s rocking in and out of him.

He looks good. This generation of Shinra is really attractive, Cloud remembers, and as he pulls himself into the van Lazard gasps, jerks his hips, and comes all over his own stomach, staring straight at Cloud. He folds into Cloud when Cloud pulls at his shoulders, whines half in protest, half in relief, when Cloud turns off the massager. While Cloud’s got him pulled forward, Cloud cuts the zip-ties. The flesh under them is already black—not to the point of serious injury, but Lazard jerks his now-free arms forward before Cloud can pull out the massager.

“You couldn’t do that first?” Lazard mutters. He’s still twisting, thoughts murmuring about how tender he is, how much it hurt coming down from his climax with the massager still going. How much he’s afraid he liked it, wanted to see where that was going.

“You would’ve yanked it out,” Cloud says. He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you would have.”

Lazard stops moving for a moment. “Did we do this?”

“Well, _we_ didn’t.” Cloud’s had that problem with more than just different versions of Lazard. Turns out a lot of people have issues with doppelgangers. “You know it’s really weird that you’re asking?”

Lazard works himself off of Cloud, grunting as he leans against the van wall. He shifts his hips and the massager scrapes against the floor and the whole line of his body flexes under his sweat-sodden clothes. He has this wondering look on his face, like he’s just gotten a new body and is figuring out how to work it, and his mind is starting to slip in and out of Cloud’s.

His eyes narrow for a moment—he caught that thought—and he plants himself firmly in Cloud’s mind. He can’t see anything that Cloud doesn’t want him to, can’t stay if Cloud really wants him out, but he kind of gets that already. Assumes that, more accurately. He’s still pleased just to be there, even if it’s just temporary, even if it’s due to Hojo’s twisted psychosis.

“Sometimes I think I have to ask just to make sure I’m still me,” Lazard finally says.

“I know the feeling,” Cloud says, and he does.

Lazard blinks hard, and Cloud wonders how bad his eyes are without his glasses. “They’re more for reading,” Lazard says. He moves his arm, hesitates, then gets onto his hands and knees. Slow, soreness showing in every movement, but intentional. He crawls to Cloud and slides his hands up Cloud’s thighs. “Is anything else out there?”

“Yeah,” Cloud says. He reaches between Lazard’s legs, pulls out the massager, pushes in a finger so Lazard doesn’t have time to be disappointed—just the seed of it in the man’s head before he’s hissing in a breath and pushing his hips back into Cloud’s hand. “Also, you were kidnapped? We should probably look into it?”

“Oh.” Lazard looks as if he doesn’t want to bother with it right now. “Oh, yes, right.”

“And I left Zack on his own somewhere,” Cloud adds. “Better go get him before he calls somebody.”

Lazard looks irritated, but what he’s really asking, before he can help it, is whether he has to get out of Cloud’s head now. Cloud rolls his eyes and herds him along into the background, where Vincent and Tseng hum quietly along these days. One of these days Cloud’s going to figure out why it’s always his goddamn mind.

* * *

Zack is upset when he catches up with them. Cloud promises to buy Zack replacements, and Zack just shoves another bag at Cloud and tells him, in a tone of deep sufferance, that those were supposed to be Cloud’s birthday, holiday, and random prank gifts for the entire year.

He goes off to escort Lazard to Lazard’s rooms for a shower and clothes, promising that nobody’s going to snatch the man on his watch, not even a super-powered time-hopping spoilsport, and Cloud goes to his rooms where Vincent yanks open the door and climbs him like a tree, mumbling about having to drag Tseng out of a meeting to fuck in a closet and not having done that in years, and also, about being pissed off Cloud didn’t have Turk cover. Cloud adds group feedback to his list of things to look at, gets them inside, and then admits Zack has a good eye for sex toys. Not that he’s ever, ever going to tell the man so.

Lazard comes back with dinner for five, Tseng in tow, and a file of year-old security reports from the border with Wutai, which seemed innocuous enough at the time, but which have a lot more meaning now that Wutai’s tried to kidnap Lazard. Also, apparently, Wutai is where the clones are coming from now.

“I hate this variation,” Cloud mutters.

Zack hits him. “Stop acting like you’ve seen it all before. So what happens next?”

Occasionally Hojo, or Hollander, decides to hedge their bets by selling secrets to Wutai. There’s always hostility with Wutai, and there are always people looking for a way to win the war through terror. But this time, whichever of the two it was, they only had old damaged samples of Jenova that they’d taken before Cloud destroyed her. And Hojo’s dead, and Hollander’s been in an institution for the criminally insane for years, courtesy of a Hojo coup, so Wutai doesn’t have the scientific expertise either. Their clones are low-quality, but they’ve started to hear about a new source, a better source, a secret Shinra weapon that the Wutai leaders are afraid of and have decided they absolutely must copy.

They’re not stupid enough to go after Cloud, and they’re getting intelligence from somewhere about who else is affected. Lazard’s the most accessible, security-wise: SOLDIER is supposed to look after him, but whether SOLDIER gives him an off-hours escort seems to depend on whether Lazard asks for it and whether any of the Firsts are paying attention. Zack’s a little annoyed at the insult, but when pressed he admits that Angeal’s been off his game and hasn’t been listening to Zack’s warnings.

Vincent says he’ll move around the Turk details and cover Lazard, and mentions off-hand that since Rufus has taken to staying in, it shouldn’t be a problem. Vincent doesn’t do off-hand comments.

He and Lazard chat cordially about who the potential informant is, after Cloud says that it’s varied too many times for him to guess, and mutually conclude that it’s probably someone on the medical staff. Enough of them have had doctors called on them because they’d had fits in public, and Lazard admits that he at least had to go to the hospital wing once in order to avoid attracting even more attention. Tseng then asks whether Lazard’s feeling more stable now, to which Lazard says, thoughtfully, that he is, and that he’s not feeling any urge to flatten himself in front of Cloud.

They go on like that for a while, with Zack keeping the food going. Cloud sits with them but he’s back in Hojo’s notes, trying to think about what Hojo could have given up to Wutai. The thing is, the Wutai war has happened every single damn thing. It’s one of the few things Cloud hasn’t managed to figure out a workaround for, and it’s never gone well. Wutai war with clones pretty much guarantees a disaster.

He only looks up when a twist of lust that’s not his own slides through his body. The table’s scattered with empty food containers and crumpled napkins. Zack’s gone, off to figure out how to write up the attack without mentioning the clones; it’ll complicate their search for the spy, but Cloud’s told him under no circumstances is Genesis to be allowed to go to Wutai and Wutai-bred clones definitely would do it. Vincent is gone as well, wanting an early start on investigating the medical staff, but Tseng and Lazard are still around. 

They’re on the couch, Lazard’s leg hiked up as if he means to lie on his back but got caught mid-turn, Tseng straddling his waist. Tseng’s hands are under Lazard’s shirt and have it pushed halfway up Lazard’s stomach, while Lazard is staring like he’s been hypnotized at the glint of gold peeking through Tseng’s mostly-unbuttoned shirt. He reaches up and touches the nipple piercing, then twists his head off the back of the couch and lets it slide until it’s bumping up against Cloud’s hip.

“It’s not an urge,” he says, looking up at Cloud, his thoughts a tangle of warm arousal and fluttering insecurity—he’s not used to this, he flinches when Tseng takes off his glasses, not used to letting himself be known—and careful invitation. “It’s—you know, before, it’s something you think is going to kill you.”

He blinks, then closes his eyes as Tseng unfastens his clothing, pulls it open for Cloud. The two of them haven’t done this before, in this world, and if they’ve done it in other timelines, it wasn’t the first time and Cloud wasn’t there for it. It’s different, feeling them map each other out, gasp and hitch and even grimace when there’s a misstep. And it comes off differently when Lazard kneels in front of him, his mouth still soft from Tseng’s kisses, his mouth on Cloud’s cock while Tseng has him from behind. He’s probably wrong about whether this is going to kill him, and he’s certainly wrong about it being an urge, but he wants it and that’s good enough.

* * *

Tseng sees Lazard back to his quarters, and Vincent comes back to Cloud’s later that night. He seems the same as before, but early in the morning Cloud wakes up and Vincent’s clutching fiercely at him, head pressed into Cloud’s chest, breathing harsh and fast. It takes a while for him to calm down, and he’s a little less amused than he should be when Cloud asks whether he could still shoot straight if Cloud felt him up and then tied him out in the slums.

Because there are going to be more clones, unfortunately. Cloud killed ten, and if that many survived to make it to Midgar, Wutai must have a sizable operation. They do need to find the mole, but they’re also probably going to have to go to Wutai at some point. Which means Cloud’s going to have to talk to Sephiroth about it. The Turks don’t have the manpower and while Cloud could go it alone, he’s not willing to bet on certain people staying behind, certain people whose absences would definitely be noted and misconstrued. If there’s going to be a damn war with Wutai _again_ , Cloud’s not going to start it.

Sephiroth, oddly enough, is already waiting for Cloud just outside Cloud’s door that morning. “I don’t think it’s mere proximity,” he says without any introduction. “I think it’s willpower, too. I’ve been testing it and I can stand longer durations.”

“I didn’t notice,” Cloud says. Because he hasn’t. He’s long since come to terms with his fixation on Sephiroth, to the point that it’s just…background, just part of him like his hair, and so he’s a little surprised. The variations don’t seem to matter; he’s always obsessed. And then here…Sephiroth is staring at him, angry again, enough so that he’s broadcasting it and behind them Cloud hears Vincent open the door and stand in the doorway. “Wait, how have you been testing it? I’ve barely seen you.”

Sephiroth actually clenches his jaw. “You are being deliberately obtuse—”

“I’m trying to not control your mind,” Cloud snaps. He really hasn’t missed fighting with Sephiroth all the time. Actually, this timeline’s been pretty great that way.

“If you want to see it like that,” Sephiroth says contemptuously. “It’s a rather simplistic excuse for blatant manipulation.”

Vincent inhales slowly. “Sephiroth. Look. I don’t think—”

“It can’t be a moral argument,” Sephiroth snorts. “You’re certainly not consistent about it.”

“Well, no, I guess it isn’t these days. It’s more of a firsthand traumatic experience thing, though I don’t suppose you’d know about it,” Cloud snaps back. He’s already had that crisis of faith and gotten over it. He’ll use his mental powers when he thinks he should. He just doesn’t use them like Sephiroth did to him.

Sephiroth takes a step forward, his eyes lit with rage, and Cloud cracks open his mind like a hammer to a nut. Doesn’t go any further, doesn’t go in the damn man’s head—he’s seen enough of that in his time. But he fractures the shields that he’s just been ignoring this whole time, the shields that don’t really exist anyway, no matter what either of them tell themselves. They’re always connected. Every time. There’s not been a barrier in any reality that’s stood up to it for long.

It’s just Cloud is used to it, and this Sephiroth isn’t. Cloud leaves him crumpled in the hallway. He hears Vincent take a couple steps after him, then a couple steps back, and then he turns the corner and doesn’t listen anymore.

* * *

Talking to Sephiroth is out, and Cloud doesn’t feel up to dealing with Genesis or Angeal. He thinks for a few minutes about going to Lazard, but on second thought, is SOLDIER really the best choice for infiltration? No.

So he visits Rufus instead. Vincent had made that point of mentioning him (speak about blatant manipulation) and they’ll have to deal with the rivalry between Rufus and Lazard at some point, and Cloud just needs to talk to somebody who doesn’t throw a temper tantrum when he’s upset. Rufus is a son of a bitch through and through, but he’s an icy one.

Well, he can be. Other versions. Sometimes Cloud starts letting them merge together, and then he gets something like this: Rufus really is sick. He’s twisted sideways over his bed, his legs pulled up, great swaths of the silk sheets wet with sweat. When he sees Cloud he swears and scrabbles backwards like pulling out a shotgun is a great idea with hands that shaky.

“What did you do to Elena?” Rufus snaps.

“Nothing.” Cloud watches Rufus’ eyes dart around. “She took Dark Nation for a walk. Said she doesn’t get it, but it worked for Tseng-sama so I’d better help you out, but she didn’t want to have to listen to it. Any idea what that means?”

Rufus just swears some more, drops of sweat rolling down the side of his face, his hands clenching and unclenching in the sheets. He gets more and more rigid as Cloud walks up to the bed, and when Cloud finally puts a hand on him, he feels like he’s made of iron.

Then he faints. His feet knock limply against Cloud’s side as Cloud hauls him into the bathroom, and Cloud ends up having to tear up one of the sheets and make a sling out of the strips because Rufus has a tub, no showerhead, and Cloud can’t hold onto that many flopping limbs and keep Rufus’ head from dropping below the water.

It takes three soaks before Rufus stops smelling like the sick wards back in the Geostigma days. Rufus wakes up halfway through the third time and just stares at the silk knotted around his wrists and ankles and waist.

“Can we talk?” Cloud asks.

“By all means,” Rufus finally says. He moves a little and after a moment Cloud realizes he was trying to test the bonds. Except he’s too weak to do more than wiggle; a flash of fear radiates out from him before he closes himself down. “What _can_ I do for you?”

Cloud starts explaining about the clones and Wutai, with plenty of reminders that Wutai’s never worked out well for Shinra, and particularly for the First-Class SOLDIERs. Rufus listens, blinking slowly, while the water drains out of the tub. When it’s all gone, he pulls at his bonds again.

“So you stripped me, hog-tied me and threw me in here because you want to talk about how to conduct foreign covert operations?” Rufus says, arch and incredulous. “Are you insane?”

Cloud opens his mouth to reply, then changes his mind. He leans forward so he can rest his arm on the edge of the bathtub, and then prop his head on his hand. Then he reaches out with his other hand and picks up the knot that connects all the strips. He pulls up on it, until Rufus’ back comes off the tub, and then lets the other man lie back.

“This usually works for you,” Cloud tells him.

Rufus chews on his lip. His eyes are dilating but still lucid. “Really.”

“Granted, you’re also usually several years older.” Cloud tugs at the knot again, twisting it so Rufus’ feet lift. 

Rufus pulls his knees in to get them down, then realizes that that pushes his ass out. He hesitates and Cloud dips his wrist, loops up some of the slack on the ankle ties so Rufus doesn’t have a choice anymore. “I suppose the decline of age is inevitable,” Rufus says, trying not to hiss. “I’m surprised you haven’t gone after Lazard, if that’s more to your taste.”

“Already did,” Cloud says, watching Rufus whiten. “Oh, you mean in other timelines. He tends to die pretty early on. Depending on when I land, sometimes I’m too late.”

Rufus flinches and Cloud feels the first convulsive touch of his mind. He’s not leaking out much but he’s definitely reaching. His and Lazard’s relationship is one of those things that Cloud’s ended up learning about over the timelines, not because Cloud had to—Rufus seemed to put Lazard behind him pretty thoroughly once Nibelheim had happened—but because people just keep talking about it. Though not Rufus. If he didn’t bring it up, Cloud’s normally ended up respecting him enough to not ask, and if Cloud didn’t respect him, it’s because Cloud had to kill him in that world.

“What are you doing here, Strife?” Rufus finally says, through gritted teeth. He tilts his head, letting his body lean into the restraints. “I admit, sex can be a useful tool, but surely with all your experience, you’ve learned less crude ways to get what you want.”

“I _came_ in here to do that, and then it kicked in and you started wanting me to fuck you,” Cloud points out. “You think I’m not tired of this? I stay away and talk to you all by phone and fill in your damn forms, and then I end up screwing you anyway. Might as well stop pretending and get it over with, and then I can get back to actually doing things.”

Rufus’ mind reaches out to him. Lashes out, to be honest, like his damned pet mauling somebody. Cloud’s still angry at Sephiroth, but damn it, he’s not that man, even if he’s getting set up as this world’s—

He’s still not quite letting that thought finish when Rufus claws at him again, and this time Cloud doesn’t let it go. He doesn’t claw back either. He just thinks, _if they think it’s just about that_ , and he opens up his mind and Rufus falls straight in.

He gasps, going bolt-rigid in the tub, and then holds the position. He’s fumbling around in Cloud’s head, clumsy and frantic, definitely not up to even Kadaj on a bad day, and Cloud just waits for him to get tired.

Cloud’s arm gets tired. He lowers it and Rufus’ body sways alarmingly, and that’s when Cloud sees that Rufus isn’t breathing, he’s fallen in so far. Cloud swears and jerks Rufus out of the bathtub by the silk strips, letting him hit the floor hard enough to make his teeth click. He’s bundling Rufus out of his head at the same time, whacking the man’s mind around, and between that and the sharp shove Cloud gives to the center of Rufus’ chest, Rufus remembers he needs his lungs.

Rufus arches up off the tiles, gasping, and then sprawls out. He stares at Cloud for a moment, then loops his arms over Cloud’s head and presses his mouth fervently to Cloud’s. Cloud isn’t going along with it, but he’s been in such a hurry to restart Rufus’ breathing that his hands are tangled in wet silk. It just takes a second for him to rip them free, but by then Rufus has his knees locked against Cloud’s ribs. He can’t get his legs all the way around, the length of silk between his ankles won’t stretch that far, but it’s a tight enough grip. He twists his wrists behind Cloud’s back, pressing the sodden knotted silk into Cloud’s spine, then drags his nails down where, in some worlds, the wings come out.

He’s in Cloud’s head enough for Cloud to feel the smugness when Cloud twists against the scratches, for Cloud to get that Rufus picked that up _from_ Cloud, and that just. Fine.

Cloud tears the silk out of the way and shoves Rufus’ legs up and wide. Rags are still wrapped around each of Rufus’ ankles and they slap annoyingly at Cloud, but less and less so as he uses everything he’s ever learned about the man to reduce him to a shivering, needy thing under him. And then he grabs a spare length of silk and ties it around Rufus’ cock, and flips him over, and does the same thing to the other side.

He doesn’t fuck Rufus until the man’s gone completely limp, he’s so wrung out. Rufus can’t even clench around him; Cloud has to squeeze his buttocks together as he pumps in and out of the man to get any friction. And then, after he’s come in Rufus, his cock still in the man, he pulls Rufus up enough to loose the tie from Rufus’ cock. Rufus sobs a little when he comes, his body barely moving, just going stiff as loop after loop of semen drops to the tile.

Cloud drags them back and over, leaning against the sink with Rufus on his lap. He works his hand down between their legs, up into where Rufus is still seated on his cock, and wipes at the come seeping out. They need to pull apart before it gets uncomfortable, but Rufus is still wet enough from the baths to keep it from drying for a while.

Rufus thinks, very weakly but pointedly, that Cloud is ridiculously practical. And then he pauses and his mind just sort of sags open, the way his legs are drooping to either side of them, and he’s seen iterations of himself in Cloud’s mind, seen how Cloud always thinks it’s a waste, what Rufus does with what he could do. How Cloud still thinks that Rufus is important enough to take into account, often thinks he’s going to have to be included, saved, helped no matter Cloud’s personal opinion of the man.

This is a much younger one, Cloud remembers. He didn’t mean to show Rufus those other versions—he’s learned that most people aren’t like Aeris, and aren’t going to treat them as just _versions_ —but Rufus doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to either blindly copy or violently reject them.

Actually, Rufus thinks at him, he’d like to discuss that tactical maneuver with the choppers and the reverse Omnislash, because he’s got some ideas about reducing the backwind and what the _hell_ is Omnislash, anyway? But first, if Cloud wants help with Wutai, does Cloud really think Rufus could be President?

It sounds a lot more uncertain than Rufus likes, and he wiggles a little on Cloud’s cock, then hisses when that sparks all sorts of sensations in his head. But he waits and Cloud finally thinks that Rufus has been all over the place as President, but that his father really never worked out, and in this world his oversight is part of the reason why Cloud has to keep sneaking around. And then Cloud thinks that Rufus is probably going to kill his father now, and Rufus wonders what’s Cloud’s objection.

Cloud doesn’t have one, to be honest. He wonders if Lazard—

—is going to need Cloud to explain that Rufus genuinely wants to collaborate, so they don’t get in each other’s way, because it’s been a little ridiculous lately, the way their teams keep tripping each other up. Rufus turns his head and snuggles it against Cloud’s neck, real affection floating out from him. He’s pleased to find that mind-sharing isn’t going to keep him from going after what he wants. He’s pleased that it’s not that terrifying after all, having someone who’ll keep him in check. Because now that he’s thinking about it, it is concerning to not know where the lines are drawn. This way, he knows where to push, and won’t just strike out blindly, like a prideful idiot. He’s just really pleased Cloud got to him before he was too far gone.

Shit, Cloud thinks, where Rufus can’t hear it. Shit. He’s not Jenova. He’s Sephiroth.

* * *

“You’re not Sephiroth,” Zack says.

“I _am_ Sephiroth,” Cloud says.

“No, you’re not,” Zack says, spreading his hands in exasperation. “Believe me, I know the guy—I know, I know, but I know _this_ guy and they’re all different, aren’t they? Seriously, Cloud, it’s starting to get on _my_ nerves—and if he was having your life, he’d be a lot more relaxed. Why aren’t you relaxed, anyway?”

“Zack, I love you, but I know what I’m talking about,” Cloud says.

“Cloud, I love you too, but I know you’re talking a bunch of bullshit,” Zack says. “You’re not Sephiroth. Why the hell would you think you were?” 

So Cloud lists all of the reasons, starting with the President’s imminent demise and working backwards from there. He throws in the fact that he actually _did_ think he was Sephiroth, or at least part of the Sephiroth-Jenova hive mind, in his original timeline.

“ _You_ don’t have a hive mind,” Zack says. “Even Valentine’s pretty mouthy when he feels like it. That sound-canceling stuff doesn’t work worth a damn.”

“That just means I’ve been paying attention to all the other Sephiroths and where they’ve gone wrong,” Cloud says. “That doesn’t mean I’m not him in this timeline. It means I’m a better Sephiroth.”

Zack puts his head in his hands. “Cloud, this is not a competition,” he moans.

* * *

“I don’t think you’re Sephiroth,” Aeris says, shaking out the dress. She frowns at it, then folds it up neatly and stows it in her bag. Spread out around the bag on her bed are several pairs of socks, a neat line of travel-sized toiletries, and a stack of Weird Gaia guidebooks. “I don’t know if I like the part about killing the President, because I try to be a good person, but he did authorize several capture orders for me and classify me as an animal. But anyway, Cloud, I’m glad that you’re trying to work with them. It’s not healthy to pretend to be someone you’re not.”

Cloud sits on her bed and picks up the top guidebook. “I’m not pretending. I haven’t pretended in a very long time and that’s the whole problem, Aeris. Why are you going to the Temple? Is the Planet speaking to you again?”

“No, that’s the problem.” Aeris discards half the toiletries but adds a small bottle of water-proofing spray, the kind of stuff you’d use on your hiking boots. She doesn’t wear hiking boots. “It’s still not, and I’m getting worried. I think something’s interfering, but I’m not sure what, so I’m going to try it at the Temple.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Cloud says.

“Oh, no, my bodyguard will be along in a couple minutes.” Then the doorbell rings and Aeris stiffens. She yells at her mother to tell them she’ll be down in a second, then begins frantically primping in front of her mirror. “Besides, Cloud, if you’re really Sephiroth, then you’re the last person who should go with me, aren’t you?”

Cloud grimaces. He doesn’t exactly go into a spiral of depression these days. He’s saved Aeris plenty of times, and had her explain to him in a multitude of ways how it wasn’t his fault when he didn’t.

“Well, they were all right, and sometimes a girl just has to live her own life, you know,” Aeris tells him. She pauses, then squeezes his shoulder. “On the one hand, it’s flattering that you still care. But on the other, you really need to stop measuring everything by one life. You’ve had so many, with so many good things.”

“I know,” Cloud says. “I know. It’s just…”

“Figuring out what you really want does take time,” Aeris says sympathetically. Then she smacks him upside the head. “But honestly, Cloud, just do it already. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better go down before Tifa gets the wrong idea about Vincent. She’s not real fond of Shinra, what with her dead dad and the experimental treatment and all.”

* * *

Tifa’s Cloud. Tifa’s _Cloud_. Tifa is Cloud. Here.

For a moment, sitting on Aeris’ steps, looking at the two women, Cloud feels like he should say something. He’s not sure what, exactly, but it’s falling somewhere between an apology for how much worse things are going to get and a list of critical missteps she’s got to avoid when he realizes that _he’s_ technically her nemesis. In which case, to hell with that. 

He takes Vincent and slips out the backdoor, and is back in Shinra Tower in time to find out that Rufus has spread rumors about increased Wutai activity at the border, gotten Lazard to authorize Shinra training maneuvers on their side, arranged for Cloud and Vincent to fly out there that night, and poisoned his father. Well, officially, it’s a heart attack, but Rufus insists on explaining the drugs he had slipped into his father’s mid-afternoon whiskey. 

“You sent Angeal to the border,” Cloud repeats slowly.

Rufus blinks. “No one’s invading anything unless you say, but we need some plausible explanation for getting SOLDIERs out of the city. Also, austerity measures are an excellent reason to explore alternative power sources. We can say we’re cutting back on Mako to support our military and of course, civilian infrastructure falls squarely into Tuesti’s domain. No need to even expand his current authority.”

“What?” Cloud looks at Lazard, who seems just as surprised that Cloud’s not taking this well. “Wait, you think you’re going to send Angeal to Wutai and we’re _not_ going to end up in a war?”

“I talked to him,” Lazard says. He’s starting to make uncomfortable noises in the back of Cloud’s head. “He understands that with such a sudden change in presidents, the situation is unstable. He’ll get the SOLDIERs out so the other departmental heads can’t use them to start anything violent, and he’ll keep them under control. He’s the most likely to have a level head about this.”

Cloud’s angry, because every single _time_ —and then he’s not angry, he’s just tired. He flops into the nearest chair and tries to figure out how fast this is going to go south, and whether he needs to go deal with Genesis now or whether he should just let the man go and deal with him and Angeal in Wutai, and about a hundred other things that he really does need to figure out now. Except he just can’t concentrate.

He’s really slipping, he thinks, and then makes to get up except that he’s got a man on his right boot and another one on his left. Lazard looks worried. Rufus looks frustrated, except that now that Cloud’s paying attention, that low anxious yammering isn’t coming from Lazard’s corner of his mind. Actually, Lazard’s gone dead silent.

“I’m trying to _help_ ,” Rufus says. He digs his fingers into the sides of Cloud’s boot. “I do remember what you told us before, but Hewley’s not going _to_ Wutai. He’s going to the border, and Fair is going to be right there with tranquilizers if necessary. There are risks but—”

“You always think they’re acceptable,” Cloud mutters.

Rufus barely doesn’t flinch. Physically. Mentally, he’s doing the equivalent of locking himself around Cloud so Cloud’s going to have to break him to get him off. And he’s telling himself that it’s about making Cloud hurt as much as he will, but really he’s dead sure it’s not going to hurt Cloud at all and he’s going to make a stand because at least then he can pretend that that’s enough.

“You thought I could be president,” he says. “I’m _trying_ to be that.”

“You said you needed help,” Lazard adds quietly. He finally stirs to life in Cloud’s head, tentatively doing something that…is supposed to be soothing? It’s like Lazard is trying to calm him down.

Anyway, that’s not what Cloud said. He can’t even think of what he said, he’s got such a headache, but he’s damn sure it wasn’t that. The whole point is that he’s the one who helps because he’s the only one who actually knows everything that’s going on—except not right now. And now he’s just…confused.

He’s never had it go like this before, he thinks, without thinking. The thought just pops up out of nowhere but once it’s there, it starts making a weird kind of sense. Sure, he’s worked with a lot of different versions of different teams, but he’s never had them jump ahead of him before. They never knew all of what was going on, and no matter how much Cloud told them, they never really…got used to it. He was always the outsider giving them orders, and they might’ve done the best they could but he and they were never going to be totally on the same page. Because they didn’t have the same books.

They still don’t, but Rufus and Lazard don’t even _have_ books. Don’t want their own. It’s more like they’re peeking over his shoulder at his book.

Cloud frowns and tests the barriers he’s got up in his head. Still good. Even though Rufus and Lazard are taking that as him reaching back and now they’re going a little glassy-eyed, trying to get at him. He sighs and lets their relief flow through, and then really thinks about the whole fake border maneuver idea. 

It could work. It could also fail miserably, but since he’s Sephiroth-Jenova he’s not going to be egging on anybody’s madness. Actually, he can probably shut that down if he has to. Might as well try it. “Okay,” Cloud says. “But I need to talk to Genesis first.”

* * *

Genesis is not where he’s supposed to be. The chopper is leaving in an hour and a half, and Vincent’s going to throw a fit because Cloud hasn’t been answering his PHS, but Cloud can’t because every time he picks it up Sephiroth tries to call him. He’s already not looking forward to the talk with Genesis so he definitely doesn’t want to deal with Sephiroth now.

Vincent thinks Sephiroth knows he overstepped and isn’t going to be as much of a jackass, if Cloud just gives him a couple minutes. It’s great that those two are still talking, but Cloud’s going to start ignoring Vincent’s calls if he keeps dropping hints about things he doesn’t know a damn thing about. It’s one thing to make sure Shinra’s future president doesn’t die of fever and dehydration in his bedroom; it’s another to make Cloud suffer more of Sephiroth’s pompous complaining.

Cloud checks the sparring rooms, the barracks, Genesis’ office. The theater down the street, even though its run of LOVELESS doesn’t start for another week, on the off-chance that this Genesis also likes to play homicidal theater ghost to productions he doesn’t like. That’s where Reno catches up with him, center stage with the last of the crew hastily exiting the room.

Reno looks a lot better than Rufus did, twirling his rod and cracking jokes about Cloud as his leading lady, right up until he gets under the spotlights. Then the tell-tale signs of drug abuse show up: red spiderwebs in the whites of his eyes, sweet chalky smell on his breath, yellow tinge to his skin. His heartbeat’s going about a zillion miles an hour and it just speeds up when Cloud grabs the man’s arm and pulls him up, trying to get a better angle on the grimy sheen over the man’s eyes.

That’s when Reno shocks him. Cloud tosses him across the stage and Reno rolls with the landing, bounces up and comes straight back at him.

It’s like pretty much every fight they have. Sharp, dirty, and quick to go to just hand-to-hand. Reno gets up too close for Cloud to pull out First Tsurugi, too close for Reno to really use the rod. And then Reno’s eyes roll back into his head and he drops in a clatter and a burst of chaotic, angry thoughts.

“Fuck,” he slurs, going through a spasm. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Gonna do me like the boss, make a house visit?”

“We’re not in a house,” Cloud says, because this is the kind of conversation he has with Reno.

Reno spits at him. It doesn’t make it anywhere near Cloud. The man’s really rundown, and whatever’s in his system is coming out with a vengeance. And fine, Cloud’s not stupid, clearly there’s some kind of penalty on their end for not…doing anything. About the whole not-hive mind thing they have with Cloud. So he probably should fix that. So he’s actually really fond of Vincent, even if in the back of his head he _is_ wondering when the man’s obsessive side is going to become a problem, and he likes Tseng well enough, and even Lazard and Rufus are growing on him. But still, he’d really like to know why the hell his becoming Jenova-Sephiroth in this world makes him feel like he’s being jerked around yet again.

The spasming seems to work its way out of Reno’s body, at least temporarily, and he lies limp and flat on his back, staring up at Cloud. “Enjoying this, asshole?” Reno says.

“You’re disgusting,” Cloud says.

Reno laughs. “Oh, is that why you haven’t been coming around, Strife? I’ll have you know all the other boys and girls line up at my gate.”

Cloud rolls his eyes and squats down by the other man’s head. “Reno, I’ve fucked you enough times for that to not matter.”

“Yeah?” Reno says, his eyes glinting. His tongue licks out over his lip and twists mockingly at Cloud. “Yeah, well, prove it.”

Cloud looks around. There’s a roll of electrical tape somebody dropped nearby. He goes and gets it, and comes back and Reno’s gotten onto his belly and is trying to crawl away. He sits on Reno, grabs the first hand that comes at him and pins it under his knee, and grabs the second hand and begins wrapping it up in tape. Wrist to fingertips, till Reno has a thumbless black mitten on his hand.

Reno swears and spits. Cloud ignores him, switches the position of Reno’s hands, and makes another tape mitten. Then he lifts his knee and lets Reno twist himself onto his back. He yanks Reno’s arms up to block the headbutt before he tapes Reno’s wrists together. Then he gets off the man.

He picks up the rod, fiddles with the settings, and turns around in time to shock Reno’s left ankle. Not that high a power, but Reno’s still rocking through a drug overdose anyway. He shouts and twists, trying to curl up, and Cloud gives his shoulder another jolt. Then his shoulderblade, and then a spot near his spine. Even at low power, that close to all those nerves, it’s dangerous. This time, once he’s done arching and jerking, Reno makes a low, ragged sound, closer to a groan than a snarl.

Cloud slides the tip of the rod down Reno’s back, parallel with the spine. Reno sucks in his breath and Cloud keeps the tip moving, running it up and down until Reno finally has to breathe out. Then he snaps the tip to just above the curve of Reno’s ass, the groove behind the hipbone, and shocks the man. Reno starts whining through his nose.

He tries to grab at the rod when Cloud turns him over, so Cloud gives him a burst on the bicep and then pushes the tip onto Reno’s right nipple. They lock eyes and Reno doesn’t blink as Cloud slowly twists the power knob. Down to the lowest setting, not much more than a tingle, and then, while he’s holding down the trigger, raising it back up till Reno’s head goes back and Cloud can see the tendons in his neck standing out. Cloud runs the rod down Reno’s front till his crossed wrists get in the way, skips over them to shock the right upper side of Reno’s groin, and then squats down between Reno’s tap-dancing feet.

Reno’s pants are halfway down his legs before he manages to get his head back up. For somebody so talkative—he’s been cursing the whole time, and hasn’t repeated a swear that Cloud can tell—his mind is strangely wordless. It’s just this increasingly forceful wash of emotions slapping at Cloud’s head. Not asking to come in, really. It’s just motion, like the rattle of Reno’s ankles against the footboards.

Cloud digs around in Reno’s trousers once he gets them off, but doesn’t find what he wants. He sighs and drags Reno over by the hands, pats down the inside of his jacket, and comes up with packets of lube and condoms. Reno’s recovering some, twisting his torso around like he means to sit up, but he stops when he sees Cloud roll the condom down over the end of his rod.

“Oh, fuck, n—” Reno starts, and Cloud drops the hand he’s just squirted lube onto, shoves a finger into Reno. 

So Reno makes that whining noise instead, squirming on Cloud’s finger so Cloud has to get open another lube packet and smear it over the condom one-handed. He’s moving so much that he’s stretching himself, and all Cloud has to do is provide the fingers. A second one, and then Cloud pins Reno down by the hip and puts the rod between Reno’s legs. He catches the underside of Reno’s right knee with the far end, hikes it up, and then presses the condom-covered end to Reno’s hole.

With the rod he doesn’t let Reno move. The man tries, hard enough so that Cloud’s leaving bruises on his hip, but the rod inches into Reno when Cloud wants it to, as much of it as Cloud wants, at the angle that he likes. Then he changes the angle. Then he changes it again, twisting the rod so Reno whimpers. He pulls it out halfway, then pushes it back in, giving Reno’s erection a good pumping with his free hand at the same time, and Reno comes in a splatter of mental incoherence.

True to form, his mind clings sloppily to Cloud’s while he’s coming down, muttering and murmuring and poking incessantly until Cloud opens up. Reno has a look, pulls out, and then looks at Cloud through his eyes. “Shit,” he says, still breathless. “Okay. You’re right, you do know how to fuck me. That’s really fucked up and I love you so much.”

“Glad you approve,” Cloud says. “So why were you following me?”

Reno blinks slowly, sweat clumping his lashes together. “What? Oh, because I was hacked off you did this to Rufus and wanted to kill you. It’s okay, changed my mind. We’re good.”

So that’s which Turk in this world, Cloud idly thinks. “You’re getting off the drugs too, right?”

“I’d say it’s really nice you care, except you kind of don’t,” Reno says. He shifts, grunts as the rod swings a little, tapping at Cloud’s foot. His ass clenches around the white rod, flesh reddening with the compression. “Fuck, I mean, seriously? Shouldn’t you be into this, too?”

“I—” Cloud starts. He stops and thinks about what a stupid argument this is, and then he remembers it’s Reno and just straightens up. No point in fighting this fight.

Reno’s eyes flick below Cloud’s belt and then he rolls them. “Oh, come on. That’s not _into_ it, that’s just getting physical. I just looked in your head, Strife, and it’s all, it was like this but not like _this_ , and this and that and can you just get up here and fucking stop thinking and fucking _do_ this?”

“What am I doing?” Cloud asks.

Why he’s asking Reno, hell knows. But Reno answers like he’s been expecting it. “Why the fuck do you think? You think you’re gonna save the world by fucking me? Fuck no, jackass. You fuck me and _then_ you save the fucking world. Keep things fucking _straight_ , would you?”

Cloud stares at him. Reno manages to undulate his hips with that rod in his ass, and he’s in Cloud’s head, sidling around, sticking flashes of arousal into everything like Cloud’s a fusebox he’s blowing, and Cloud grabs the rod and yanks it out. He shakes off the condom, then picks up the tape again and straps Reno’s ankles to each end of the rod. Then he pulls the rod up and over, pushing it against Reno’s chest, and he holds it there while he fucks the man. Just fucks him. Whatever the hell, whoever the hell, is in his head right then, he ignores it because he just does.

It’s just really good, is what it is.

* * *

Vincent’s not that amused when Cloud shows up to the chopper with Reno slung from the rod—no pants, and his wrists now also taped to the rod to so Cloud can just hike the thing over his shoulder—and he’s even less amused when Reno informs them that damn straight, the Firsts have been trying to drug their way around the hive mind pull too. It’s probably the worst chopper flight Cloud’s ever taken and even after all this time, Cloud still tends to get airsick. He misses Fenrir.

Still, they get to the border way ahead of time. Zack’s there to meet them with the news that Angeal’s disappeared. Went for an evening stroll and hasn’t come back. Only been about thirty minutes late, but with what Cloud said before, Zack’s assuming the worst. He already looks it, thumbnail gnawed and bleeding, haggard face, a shadow in his eyes Cloud was hoping wouldn’t show up this time around. He keeps apologizing for not taking Cloud seriously enough.

Cloud really wants to kill something. Not Zack. Honestly, he kind of wants to kill himself, for building Zack up to this bad of a guilt trip when Zack doesn’t deserve it. He’s the one who’s supposed to deal with knowing the future and all the hell that brings.

He does have a pretty good idea of what’s happened. This isn’t much of a deviation. He can fix this.

Reno’s still detoxing so they leave him in camp. They borrow a truck and drive almost up to the border, and then Zack climbs up on top of the truck with an assault rifle while Cloud and Vincent take a walk themselves. Cloud reaches out and finds Genesis and Angeal, foggy with drugs, plus a lot of clones, and he does what he hasn’t done up till now: he goes in, really in, and takes them over.

They’re at some kind of pick-up point. Genesis’ mind is a little clearer, fighting him immediately, but he needs a headcount. He stays in till he gets an idea of how many non-clones there are, then rakes out the drug haze while he’s at it. And then he shoves Vincent against the nearest tree and gives him a handjob.

Vincent’s still working through the backwash of what Cloud was doing with Reno, though he’s been covering pretty well, and he lasts barely long enough to get the clones running their way. Cloud ends up letting Zack take out the first wave while Vincent catches his breath, and then he sticks his hand back in Vincent’s pants.

What little sense the clones have falls apart. Also, turns out Vincent’s shooting is perfectly fine no matter the circumstances, but even accelerated healing doesn’t make having a gun fire right by your head less painful. Cloud’s still shaking the blood out of his ear when Genesis and Angeal show up.

Genesis tries to run him through with Rapier. Cloud flattens him, like he did Sephiroth in the hallway, and then goes on back to camp.

He’s in the middle of telling Rufus that they just killed a bunch of Wutai soldiers and scientists on the wrong side of the border when Sephiroth interrupts, saying something about his mother. Cloud turns off the PHS and Angeal’s standing in the tent doorway.

“ _What_?” Cloud says.

Angeal sways on his feet, catches himself.

Cloud puts his arms down on the desk and then cradles his head in his hands. His headache’s back. It’s bad enough that he thinks Vincent’s feeling it; Vincent’s presence in his mind certainly is more active than usual. “It’s not like I came here wanting this to happen,” he says. “And when I found out, it’s not like I didn’t try to leave.”

“You tried to leave?” Angeal says. His feet are scuffing towards Cloud, slow and reluctant.

“Oh, just get down,” Cloud mutters. “You don’t have to do anything else. Just get down and it’ll help. Hell, I’ll get down if it makes you feel better.”

“No, you’re fine.” Angeal reconsiders that once he’s on his knees. SOLDIER healing and all, but his skin’s got a grey undertone and a fine tremble is going through his hands and arms and shoulders. “Okay. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Do you want to talk about it?”

Cloud looks at him. Then at the PHS on the desk. Then he gets off his chair and onto the dirt floor of the tent, and leans his back against the chair leg. “I know exactly what having that done to you feels like, and what you feel like afterward, and what it turns you into. I knew that when I did it,” he says.

“That sounds like you’re trying to apologize,” Angeal says.

“Well, if you want,” Cloud says. “I got one a couple times, but…you know, that’s its own thing. It doesn’t really change what already happened.”

They sit for a while. The PHS buzzes now and then, and in the back of his head Cloud feels bursts of annoyance from both Reno and Vincent, so close together that they’re probably talking to each other. He’s ignoring everything that’s coming from Genesis.

Angeal moves, then looks at Cloud. “Do you mind?”

Cloud blinks at him. After another moment, Angeal shrugs and rearranges himself with his head in Cloud’s lap. He keeps shifting around, like he can’t figure out how to fold up his legs; the Wutai soldiers seem to have gone for drugs over brutality, so it’s not like he’s working around an injury.

“That feels better,” Angeal says after a moment. He twists his hips and finally seems to get comfortable. “It’s…odd if I think about it, but if I don’t, it works. All right. Let’s talk.”

“What?” Cloud says.

“I was trying to give you some space to work through it,” Angeal tells him. “You already had a hell of a lot going on, with all the…the time-traveling, and changing people’s lives, and you seemed like you could use one less worry. I figured I could handle myself till things calmed down. That’s why I was avoiding you. Look, it’s weird to have to get on my knees to talk to you, but it’s not going to kill me, and you were pretty clear that you weren’t into it.”

Cloud moves his right leg. Angeal’s head is…the weight’s fine, but he’s built bigger and broader than the others and he presses differently into Cloud’s lap. “Actually, I am. Into it. And at this point, I’m almost positive it’s not just getting on your knees.” 

Angeal grimaces, but keeps his head in place. “Yeah, I know, and drugs are a stupid solution and I should’ve known better, especially with what you already told us could have happened. People get pretty messed up when they’re running from themselves.”

“I’m not running from myself,” Cloud says tightly. Then he pushes his hand over his face. “Why does everyone—all I wanted to do was fix things, all right? Change what happened, make it right. I didn’t plan for this.”

“Is this literally all you do?” Angeal asks him. “Just go from world to world, meeting us over and over again? I mean, I’m sure we’re all glad you’re helping, but I don’t know if I could stand it. You never get sick of us?”

No, he does, and that’s why he slipped up here, Cloud thinks. He jumped back farther, thought he’d taken care of everything and took a little vacation. And it had been really nice, those years just wandering around, no pressure on him to do anything, just thinking he’d check in real quick near the start of it to make sure and then move on.

“I stopped getting to know you a while ago,” Cloud says without thinking. He feels Angeal’s mind jump and shuts it out before he can find out why. “I didn’t need to. I’d met so many of you.”

“Hurt that much, huh,” Angeal says.

He’s wrong. And he’s not. Cloud closes his eyes and puts his head back on the chair seat. “Well, I’m always going to end up leaving.”

Angeal touches his foot. “Why?”

“If I do it right, then there’s no place for me,” Cloud says after a moment. He opens his eyes and brings his head forward, rubs his hand over his face again. “And don’t start talking about what that sounds like. I know what that sounds like. But given what you end up being like when you try to force a place for yourself no matter what, you know, I’m fine with it.”

“I’d really like to get to know you,” Angeal says, weirdly enough. He looks serious about it too. “And yes, I just heard you say that’s exactly what you’re trying not to do, but I promise not to get clingy. I just…it’s stupid, pretending this isn’t happening. I’d like to just acknowledge it and move on and have an actual conversation with you.”

It’s probably not a good idea. It’s also hypocritical as hell if Cloud refuses. He thinks for a couple minutes about shoving Angeal’s head off and leaving, about curling his fingers in that thick hair and wrenching Angeal’s head back. And then he just sighs and moves his hand so it’s cupping the back of Angeal’s neck. He watches the pupils of Angeal’s eyes slowly expand, and then he tugs Angeal’s mind into his.

Angeal’s thoughts swirl around a little, curious and cautious in equal measures. He’s aware of what Cloud can do but he’s also thinking about what Cloud doesn’t want to do, or at least, what he thinks Cloud doesn’t want to do. He’s not totally right about it, but before Cloud can point that out, Angeal just curls up and settles. It’s like a dog sleeping by the door, out of the way but vigilant, and it’s comforting. This is completely going to blow up down the line, but, Cloud thinks, he does want it. And so does Angeal.

* * *

They don’t fuck. Angeal’s still loaded with drugs. Cloud’s killed a bunch of clones and done a lot of mind-fucking over the past few hours, and is probably looking at doing a lot more in the near future. Instead they have a short discussion about which Shinra doctors Angeal went to see for his drugs, and which ones Genesis probably went to see, and how nobody had mentioned to the Firsts that they already thought the medical staff was leaking secrets to Wutai. When Vincent comes in, Angeal’s got some pretty choice words about SOLDIER-Turk cooperation.

To be fair, Lazard hadn’t mentioned it either and Lazard and Angeal, at least, are on good terms. But Angeal’s had much less contact than usual with Lazard, something about Sephiroth’s sensitivities. Sephiroth, Angeal also mentions, has not resorted to drugs. His bad temper around Cloud is unenhanced.

Cloud really, really doesn’t want to hear it. They break camp, hoping the news of the attack won’t get back to Wutai’s overlords too quickly, and Cloud sacks out in the back of a truck with Angeal as a pillow because he’s making Vincent return all the missed calls. Thankfully, his motion sickness doesn’t come up with cars anymore, and he actually gets some sleep.

When he wakes up, it’s because Reno is sucking his cock. Angeal’s still there, and still in Cloud’s head, but decidedly not settled. Cloud finally just grabs the man’s arm and drags him into it, and it’s not the worst morning of Cloud’s life, at that point.

He gets out of the truck and finds out that they haven’t just driven straight back to Midgar, but instead are still pretty close to the border, at the nearest town. That’s when Reno decides to fill Cloud in that Vincent has taken the chopper back because Wutai has already found out and is mobilizing their army, and they need more forces.

“Strategic chokepoint, here,” Reno says, gesturing at the road running through the center of town. He grins and picks at the fading rash on his wrist where the tape had chafed. “Just call me your tactical brain trust while Valentine’s gone.”

“I’ve actually watched you lead troops,” Cloud snorts.

“And it got you hot and bothered, right?” Reno’s good humor fades as Angeal and then Genesis come into view. Even from here, even without Cloud’s direct line into his brain, Genesis is radiating fury. “Seriously. Valentine wouldn’t have gone if he didn’t trust me to get your back, so just say the word.”

Whatever the hell they have going on between them all, Cloud probably should talk to Vincent about his habit of using Cloud as a recruitment benefit. He appreciates…he appreciates that Vincent’s trying to help, in his way, but…shit, he thinks, then. It’s not just Lazard and Rufus. They’re all doing it.

Genesis stops in front of him. “Can we speak?” he says, his jaw clenching on every word. “In private.”

“I’m going to win, Angeal’s going to be mad you’re even dragging your relationship into this, and I’m not _anything_ like any character in LOVELESS,” Cloud rattles off. “This is _stupid_. This isn’t even a competition. I know every move you could possibly make.” 

Angeal hisses slowly between his teeth, and next to Cloud Reno’s balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to dive in. Genesis, commendably, merely tightens his mouth into a bloodless line.

“If you want to fight, fine, we’ll fight. But I am so tired of it,” Cloud says. And that’s when there’s a rumble and then a WEAPON appears in the sky.

A WEAPON.

Cloud’s already leaping through the air when his mind catches up. And all the people in his mind—normally it’s strangely not crowded, but now they’re all yelling at once and he has to pull his first blow slightly because he’s pushing it all out. Just focusing. Fighting. This, _this_ , he really has done so many times he doesn’t need to think through it. The moves just come to him, easy as breathing. There’s no doubt, no confusion, no second thoughts when it comes to this part. It’s just him and his opponent.

Granted, it’s not like even he can take it down in one attack. WEAPONs take time, attention. He’s well into his fifth pass before he even notices he’s got company. A streak of red slides past the periphery of his vision and then he’s checking positions, still running on instinct. Angeal covering the town, trying to corral panicking troopers. Reno circling around but he doesn’t have the range with his weapon. Genesis keeping the WEAPON busy from the other side.

Cloud slips into tandem with the other man, trading off passes so that the monster can never take a breath. It works, and then it doesn’t, Genesis breaking pattern. The WEAPON surges forward and Cloud’s final strike takes it barely in time. The claw goes through Genesis’ shoulder and coat instead of the middle of his chest.

The rest of the body is still falling towards them, so Cloud slices off the claw and then hauls Genesis out of the way. He registers other people moving towards the man and lets go, clambering back over the WEAPON’s corpse. He’s looking for more, not seeing any, but he keeps scanning the sky and the ground until something touches him.

He grabs it and then comes back to himself, Reno’s shaking breathing pressed into his thigh, his hand gripping the other man’s shoulder as Reno kneels by him. The WEAPON begins to dissolve and Cloud reaches into the Lifestream on an impulse.

Not talking to her, he remembers. Shit.

* * *

They call for choppers and go straight back to Midgar. Genesis isn’t too badly wounded, but he does need a surgeon to make sure he doesn’t lose any mobility in his arm. The town is told to evacuate, and they leave some troopers there to handle it, but they can’t afford to stay. Elena and Rude are already off to bring back Tifa and Aeris, and Tseng meets them on the landing pad and brings them straight to a conference room where Sephiroth is waiting.

“I tried to contact you,” he says without preamble. “My mother’s been sending reports from the Crater about strange phenomena.” 

“Oh,” Cloud says. “Oh, Lucrecia.”

Sephiroth’s eyes narrow, but he lets Cloud get out a two-minute explanation: the WEAPONS are made by the Planet to protect the Planet but they can be hijacked, they clearly have been hijacked, and somebody in Wutai’s done it. At this point it doesn’t really matter who; once the WEAPONs get launched, that’s when they’re beyond anyone’s control except, hopefully, Aeris.

Everybody still wants to talk about who and launch the damn war that’s a completely moot point now, and also Sephiroth’s hands are beginning to twitch, so Cloud excuses himself from the room.

He takes a shower. Changes into a fresh set of clothes. Goes back to the conference room and Sephiroth isn’t there, but Tseng is, with a stack of reports from various places. The WEAPONs are very predictable when it comes to their order and location of appearance, so it doesn’t take long for Cloud to sort that out. At least, it doesn’t seem to take that long, but when he slips out this time to grab something to eat, Genesis catches him.

Genesis is rarely less than immaculate, even when available resources don’t justify it, but he’s disheveled now. His trousers are clearly borrowed: they’re belted tightly, but still so large that they droop from his hips. He’s only got one sleeve of his shirt on, with the rest of the shirt knotted around his waist. The sling on his arm and the bandage enveloping his shoulder offers some replacement coverage. He’s still got blood in his hair.

“I’m starting to believe you’re as jaded as you claim,” he says. “You looked _disappointed_ when that monster appeared.”

“It’s not what you think,” Cloud sighs. “It’s…conservation of stupidity.”

Genesis arches his brow. “Pardon?”

“There’s this theory that…you can do whatever you like, but certain things are always going to happen. You can’t change the timeline that much.” Cloud grimaces. “Well, no, that’s not the theory. That is actually what happens. There’s always a damn stupid war with Wutai, and always WEAPONs. It just happens different ways, and that’s the theory part. That no matter what you do, who you get to, there are some ideas that are just going to crop up at some point, because people are idiots.”

A lot of people have come up with that one. Zack, of course, but a fair number of others in and out of Shinra. Sometimes Cloud introduces it, just because—because it’s so damn true, and he’s so used to living with it all the time that it feels a little weird when it’s not out there, so he might as well speed it up a bit.

“What you did to us,” Genesis finally says. He begins to tilt, as if the floor under his feet is moving, and then catches himself roughly against the wall. When he pushes off there’s a faint streak of blood on the wall, and the bandage on his shoulder is slowly reddening. “What you made—”

“Sometimes I really see the attraction of just _making_ you,” Cloud says, lifting his hands.

He presses them to either side of Genesis’ face. Genesis grabs at him, ends up twisting his fingers in Cloud’s clothes and trying to drag Cloud up so he can slump on Cloud. Instead Cloud ducks and twists, gets Genesis over his shoulder, and hauls him into the nearest empty room.

Turns out it’s a kitchen prep room. There’s a handy steel table, so Cloud flops Genesis onto it and then climbs up and straddles the man. He leans over and puts his arms down on either side of Genesis’ head so the man has to look at him. “Okay. Listen to me. You’re not a monster. You’re a highly-skilled asshole who’s been experimented on his whole life. And you know what? That’s terrible, but there are _lots_ of people walking around who’ve had exactly the same thing done to them and they don’t go insane and try to act out an epic poem by way of systematic slaughter.”

“Why do you keep bringing LOVELESS up?” Genesis snaps. He’s curled his hand around Cloud’s wrist but he seems more interested in arguing than shoving Cloud off. “Is it a crime to like poetry?”

“It is the way you do it,” Cloud tells him.

“How do I do it?” Genesis moves his injured arm, grimaces, and then lets his head fall back against the table. “And what slaughter? The last I noticed, I was being puppeteered out of Wutai custody.”

Cloud rolls his eyes. “I got out of your head before you got yourself free.”

“Yes, and killed the professional soldiers who’d gathered there to capture and deliver myself and Angeal to the very professional scientists who couldn’t wait to cut us up for _your_ cells,” Genesis says. He lets go of Cloud’s wrist long enough to gesture, then grabs Cloud again so quickly that he bumps his injured shoulder up against Cloud’s other arm. “How is that a slaughter? Even the scientists were armed.”

“Fine, that wasn’t one, but you’re going to do it. You always do it,” Cloud says.

“I always…” Genesis’ eyes narrow. And then he tries to slap Cloud. He’s pulling it even before Cloud pins his arm and he looks furious about it. “I’m not them, you imbecile! Are you so addled by your world-hopping that you can’t tell us apart anymore?”

“Of course I can. I know every goddamn version of you,” Cloud says bitterly. “Know them better than me, at this point.”

Genesis twists sharply under Cloud’s hands, his wrist bones jutting up into Cloud’s palm. He’s been keeping his mind under wraps, tight enough that Cloud figures he’s actually realized beforehand they’ve got a little control over it, if Cloud’s not trying, but it leaks vicious anger, reaching for Cloud, and Cloud braces for when it bursts out.

And then, suddenly, Genesis is calm. His eyes are clear and cool as an alpine lake. “You hate us,” he says.

Cloud blinks. He shifts his weight back without thinking, only noticing when Genesis tugs his arm free. “I don’t, actually,” he says. He’s tired, and he’s taking too long here. There are other things he should be doing, needs to be doing. Things he actually has been able to fix before. “I really…don’t. If I did, it’d be a lot easier.”

He pushes himself back on his heels, then swings his leg over Genesis. The steel is slippery and he has to steady himself on the edge of the table before he can slide his feet over it. He’s just about to push himself off when Genesis grabs his arm.

“You’re lying,” Genesis says. Cloud feels him roll over, lever himself up until his breath is warming Cloud’s back. “Why else would you try something different every time, if not because you didn’t like how it turned out before? Aren’t you just looking for your perfect world?”

“No, I’m not.” Cloud pulls at his arm, and to his surprise, Genesis lets go. He gets off the table, then stops and stares at the far wall. “Just because I’m not satisfied with where I am, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”

“So there’s something wrong with you.” Genesis slides himself off the table. He’s pale, a big bloodstain in the middle of his shoulder bandage now, and some more soaking into the sling at his neck. “Why are you staring at me?”

It’s not degradation, Cloud remembers after a moment. That’s not how it works here. They looked into it; his cells don’t do that. It’s probably the drugs they gave Genesis, and Cloud never was that great at healing so he supposes it makes sense his cells wouldn’t be, either. 

Genesis frowns at him, then reaches towards Cloud’s face. Cloud thinks the man wants to snap his fingers in front of Cloud, something like that, something related to the staring, but instead Genesis curls his hand around Cloud’s cheek and stoops and kisses him. And slips up against Cloud’s mind the same time, almost sneaking in at the edges because it’s so unexpected.

He makes a wounded, small noise when Cloud seals off his head, and then pushes him back by his good shoulder. “I have to go,” Cloud says. He backs away from Genesis’ outstretched hand. “I don’t get a choice any more than you do.”

“Oh, I think I have a choice,” Genesis says, looking at him oddly. It’s like he…it’s like Cloud is behaving exactly like he thinks Cloud would behave, and he hates it but he’s not holding it against Cloud. He’s just…waiting for Cloud to finish. “Do you ever want to stay in any of these worlds?”

“What difference does that make?” Cloud says, turning away. “They’re not mine.”

Genesis lets him go.

* * *

Right then, anyway. Cloud finally gets his meal and then goes back to the conference room to figure out who kills which WEAPON and whether they’ll have to evacuate anywhere. He can kill a WEAPON by himself if he has to, but if they’re in a populated area instead of a mostly wild borderlands, he can’t guarantee minimal casualties. There’s Sephiroth, and maybe Vincent, except one, Rufus needs a bodyguard and two, Cloud really wants someone in Midgar who can take out any idiot Shinra department head who gets the idea that WEAPONs make great experimental weapons target practice. Angeal and Genesis will have to wait until the drugs have cycled out of their system. And it’s going to take at least a day for Elena and Rude to catch up to Aeris and Tifa, let alone bring them back.

Cloud’s thinking over whether it was a bad idea, not going with Aeris, when Sephiroth walks into the conference room. The man pulls out the chair next to Cloud, keeps pushing it till it’s against the wall, and then gets on his knees where the chair used to be, on the floor right next to Tseng.

Tseng stares. Lazard, who joined them in time to discuss the chances that SOLDIER barracks could act as evacuation shelters, stares. Sephiroth ignores both of them and reaches for the map Cloud’s marked up with likely WEAPON emergence points—he’s tall enough to do that without rising off his heels—and then spreads the map over his knees.

“Junon?” Sephiroth says, frowning. “Is it coming out of the water?”

He’s not in Cloud’s head. He’s not even trying to get into Cloud’s head. He’s over there, keeping everything over there. “Yes,” Cloud says.

Sephiroth nods and starts asking about its underwater capabilities. It’s—confusing, but after a couple of rounds of questions, Cloud gets that Sephiroth thinks Sapphire WEAPON is going to attack below water level. They start discussing it and Sephiroth’s still not trying to get into Cloud’s head. Lazard hesitantly adds a question about Shinra naval training—what little there is; Cloud’s been in worlds where that’s somewhat better but usually, it’s merchant marine only—and they talk about that, and when Cloud finally checks the time, they’ve gone on for a good ten minutes. That’s over twice as long as the next-longest conversation Cloud’s had with Sephiroth.

Then they move onto the next WEAPON. Tseng has to go and Vincent comes in to replace him. Vincent pauses when he sees Sephiroth and Sephiroth senses it, looks up and nods and then asks Vincent whether the medical staff has been purged, to which Vincent nods back while giving Cloud a quick mental scroll through a list of names and faces. Then Vincent sits down on the floor where Tseng had been and presses the side of his face to Cloud’s knee just a little too hard.

He’s fine for the rest of what turns out to be a two-hour session, at the end of which they actually have a coherent plan for minimizing casualties while maximizing efficient take-downs of the WEAPONs _and_ fending off the Wutai army that’s going to try and cross the border before those morons figure out the WEAPONs aren’t on anyone’s side. It helps that the Shinra army’s still completely intact. 

They only get a little bit into the details of the Wutai army part when Sephiroth abruptly calls off the meeting. He doesn’t explain why, just asks if they can all reconvene in the morning, but Cloud’s glad for the break. It’s been a while since he’s run into a Sephiroth that wasn’t only sane, but was also still interested in actually generaling, and Cloud keeps spacing out thinking about it.

Sephiroth leaves, still not in Cloud’s head. Cloud awkwardly deals with Lazard, who’s suddenly in need of extensive reassurance that Cloud is fine, despite having watched Cloud run around Shinra Tower for the past few hours. Then Vincent, who is, it turns out, working through a ferocious piece of guilt about not being around for the WEAPON. Cloud tries to make it stop, but ends up trying to distract the man by dragging him to a quick meeting to update Rufus, who seems perfectly himself up until he decides to bury his face in Cloud’s shoulder for a good minute as a good night.

At that point, it’s all Cloud can do to just make it back to his quarters and into bed. Vincent’s mind is still muttering in his head, but he’s so tired he almost thinks of it as just more clones, which he’s used to. He lets it drone into the background noise, lets Vincent wrap around him and just goes to sleep.

* * *

When he wakes up, Vincent’s back to calm, Zack’s got breakfast in the living room and Genesis is taking up his couch because Cloud is “babysitting” him. He arches his brow as he says it, and then quotes LOVELESS when Zack complains that he’s hoarding all the eggs. Cloud takes a seat on the floor because there are no more seats. Vincent’s getting down next to him when Genesis slithers off the couch and manages to sprawl out so that Vincent wouldn’t be able to get more than a hand near Cloud.

So Cloud gets on the couch and Genesis climbs back up, sprawling again so he takes up the rest, and Vincent takes his usual spot at Cloud’s feet, his thoughts equally annoyed and amused.

“Nearly got a full set, huh, Spike?” Zack says through a mouthful of food. 

Cloud shakes his head. Genesis delicately pats his mouth with a napkin. “I think that gives him a little too much credit,” he says. “But he is operating at a disadvantage.”

Zack goes to throw things away in the kitchen and Cloud looks down at Genesis. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“What, you don’t already know?” Genesis says. He turns onto his side, pushing the top of his head into Cloud’s hip. “You don’t operate in a vacuum, Strife.”

He pushes himself up, then bends over and kisses the back of Cloud’s hand. His lips are rough, cracked, and his mind jerks and flutters and stumbles up along Cloud’s shields for a moment. Then he gets off the couch, saying something about Angeal coming to collect him.

Vincent thinks that Genesis has a point, and when Cloud frowns at him, Vincent unfolds out of his corner of Cloud’s mind. He’s sorry, he knows he upset Cloud last night, he’s sorry, he still thinks he should have been there for the WEAPON, and he’s sorry, he knows Cloud still doesn’t get it but he thinks this is good for Cloud, will be good for Cloud.

Cloud sits there. He doesn’t know what Vincent means. He doesn’t like that feeling, not knowing—it’s been a very, very long time since he’s had it. 

* * *

Sephiroth’s already kneeling when Cloud walks into the conference. The meeting goes like the one the night before, productive and strangely peaceful. They review the latest reports. Sapphire WEAPON’s definitely heading towards Junon, and it looks like Wutai has paused to figure out what the hell is the WEAPON corpse on the border. Nobody needs Cloud to tell them that Wutai isn’t going to see sense and back down; they’re going to think WEAPONs are targeting Shinra right up until one swallows up the Wutai capital.

The dilemma is, Scarlet’s Mako Cannon is nowhere near operational, and they don’t have any other remote weapons powerful enough to deal with Sapphire WEAPON, but it’ll take too long to go to Junon, kill it, and come back in time to handle Wutai. Sephiroth suggests he and Cloud split up, then nearly plants his face in the floor. His hair sweeps out and a wash of it goes over Cloud’s shins as Cloud shoves his chair back.

Vincent and Rufus have similar reactions, hissing and grabbing at their heads. Zack walks in with a fresh pot of coffee, has a look, and turns right around to follow Cloud out of the room.

“What the hell happened?” he asks. “I thought everyone was good. Please tell me you’re good, because we already paid out the pool and—”

“Reno’s cooking every single one of those, I hope you realize,” Cloud mutters. He keeps going down the hallway. He has no idea where it actually leads, but if he stops moving Zack will drag him back. “He’s got straw men entering for him.”

Zack bangs the coffeepot on Cloud’s shoulder. “I am _horrifically_ offended. One, _of course_ he does, but I figure my straw men even it up. Two, you honestly think I’m gonna get distracted from your mental anguish? What kind of friend do you think I am?”

Cloud turns around. The coffeepot hits his chest, then slips through Zack’s fingers and crashes off their boots, scattering coffee and glass everywhere. “Zack, I’m trying not to kill people!”

“Okay.” Zack scratches the back of his head. “I thought you were trying not to fuck people, but it’s about time you admitted that that was a lost cause.”

And there are just—so many things. And Cloud loves him, Cloud loves him so much that every single time, no matter how much Cloud tries and what he does and what he remembers about what he’s done, there’s always this moment where he looks at Zack and he just. He wishes he could kill Zack.

“Cloud,” Zack says, quietly. He’s shifted to someone else, somebody who’s serious and calm and sympathetic without being condescending. “Hey, look. Just…stay here for a second, all right? I’m…I’m going to get somebody to talk to you.”

He backs up a step, then another, his hands spread palms-out. He takes a third step and twists sideways, walking crablike down the hall so he doesn’t break eye contact until he hits the corner. Then he’s gone and Cloud is standing in a huge brown stain with little bits of wet glass.

Cloud cleans up the glass and then gets out of the hallway. He stays nearby; there’s a little storage room a few feet away, full of napkins and plates and glasses and seasonal decorations. He’s poking at some candles when the door opens and Genesis walks in.

“Don’t act surprised,” Genesis says. “We’re all well aware of your impeccable foresight.”

Why him is the obvious question, except it’s Zack, so Cloud doesn’t even go there. “I’m trying not to kill people,” he says.

Genesis still doesn’t have his red coat on, but he looks a lot tidier than before. His clothes fit properly and his shirt is on all the way, though it looks like he cut partway through the underarm seam to allow for the shoulder bandage. “You’re not very successful at that,” he observes.

Cloud takes one candle off the shelf and twists it in his hands. The wax deforms, softens from the stress and a long red clump of it lands on the back of his arm, then falls to the floor. “I’ve killed you,” he says, and hears Genesis’ breathing pause briefly. “I’ve killed everyone else. I’ve killed _me_. And it’s not great, you know, but when I did it I knew what I was doing. So there was that.”

“If there was, I don’t see it,” Genesis says dryly. He reaches out and plucks a candle from the shelf, turning it this way and that in his hand. The wick suddenly is alight, but he keeps twisting the candle so the melting wax spirals around and around the sides but barely moves downwards. “You realize I’m here because you’re terrified and none of the others can see it.”

That’s wrong. Angeal probably got it, if Zack did, and Sephiroth almost certainly has. Maybe even Rufus; he’s always had a sixth sense for that no matter how he and Cloud happened to stand in relation to each other. And that’s right, because yeah, that’s pretty much the problem. “I don’t think you understand,” he tells the other man. “With who I am, if I _don’t_ know what I’m doing, I’ll—”

“Live like the rest of us, facing uncertainty with such frail guides as poetry?” Genesis snorts, shakes his head, and then gets down on his knees. Not having his arm free makes him a little clumsy, sending a splatter of melted wax across the black of his trousers. He brushes it off and then sets the candle down on the floor in front of him. “I believe in it, but I’m well aware that correctly interpreting the text is difficult, even after the degree of study I’ve put into it. And I’m aware that we may or may not live up to the roles laid out for us.”

Cloud feels something soft and greasy slide up between his fingers and sees that he’s crushed the candle in his hand. He opens his fist and the fragments stick to his skin, warmed by the pressure. “I want to leave.”

Genesis looks up, and somehow, he’s looking down at Cloud instead. “Pity,” he says, putting his hand on Cloud’s knee. “I’d like you to stay.”

He leans forward and rests his head against Cloud’s leg. His hand stays on Cloud’s knee, not gripping, merely laying on the joint. The burning candle on the floor means he has to contort himself, suck in his belly and arch his back. He can’t hold the position that long, not with his injuries, and the sweat is already beading up on the nape of his neck.

Cloud reaches down and runs his thumb across the skin there, pushing the wetness up into Genesis’ hairline. There’s a shudder, in body and in mind, but Genesis keeps out of Cloud’s head. He’s not hiding in his own head, he’s definitely keeping himself out enough to sense and be sensed, but it’s almost…respectful, the way he’s holding them apart.

The candle goes out when Cloud kicks it over. He pushes Genesis up against the shelves and Genesis comes off his knees, sitting on his hip as he pulls at Cloud’s clothes with his free hand. He noses his way into Cloud’s trousers before they’re fully down and then he wraps his mouth around Cloud’s cock while Cloud knots his fingers over the edge of one shelf, warping the metal. Another candle falls over and rolls up against Cloud’s hand, and nearly falls off when Cloud finally, still blinking away the lights, pushes himself back.

Genesis stares up at him, mouth red and bruised and open. It stays open when Cloud lifts his boot, pushes it between Genesis’ legs, rocks it up against the other man’s erection. Cloud twists his foot and presses the edge of the sole along Genesis’ cock until Genesis begins to shift uncomfortably, pushing at Cloud’s knee and then thigh. Then Genesis’ eyes drift to the candle in Cloud’s hand, the one that nearly fell. He hisses slowly through his open mouth, his hips lazily moving under Cloud’s foot, and then reaches up and pulls open his shirt, tugs apart the front of his trousers, till he’s turning bare skin up to Cloud.

When the first drop of melted wax hits him, on the collarbone, just where the sling’s chafed the skin, he doesn’t hiss. His eyes shut and his head goes back and his mind slips open like someone else would spread their legs.

The second drop grazes his cheek, leaves a faint trace of red on the way to his shoulder. He puts his hand back, scratching at the floor, then the shelf as Cloud drips more wax in a lopsided semi-circle across and down his chest, dipping to his belly, and back up to just catch the tip of his nipple. Then he grabs Cloud’s ankle, pulling Cloud’s boot down hard on his cock. He grinds up against the sole as the wax strikes his abdomen, trails below his belly-button. When it reaches the base of his cock he jerks up twice and then comes, sagging in a dazed mess against the shelves.

He meant it, wanting Cloud to stay. He’s not looking for another rival, another standard to destroy and replace, not with Cloud, and he thinks it’s ridiculous that Cloud would have ever expected him to be upset over discovering something he couldn’t conquer. A rivalry is for that which is similar, and Cloud is clearly in an entirely separate category. Cloud might as well expect him to want to defeat the Planet.

When Cloud flinches, Genesis’ mind pounces on it. That’s expected. Then Cloud jerks out of the man’s head and back into his own and Genesis follows. That’s expected. And once he’s in, Genesis presses and pushes and searches, and even though Cloud knows the man can’t go anywhere he doesn’t allow, he’s still taken aback that Genesis even knows to look for more, knows he’s being cut off.

He pushes at Genesis and Genesis fights, and Cloud throws him out so hard that they both grab at their heads. Genesis breathes in sharply, then looks up. “So that’s what,” he says.

Cloud doesn’t know what he means. Doesn’t want to know. Honestly, he wants to storm out of there and just—but he catches himself. Puts his clothes in order, scrapes the wax off his hands, and by then Genesis has pulled his usual hauteur over himself, frowning at his dust-smeared clothes, jerking at his sling as he gets to his feet. He slips and Cloud grabs his arm, and Genesis bobs his head as if he’s going to lay it against Cloud’s side. When Cloud steps back and releases him, he snorts and avoids looking at Cloud as if Cloud was a particularly displeasing eyesore.

Sephiroth is in the hallway outside. Cloud stares at the door and Genesis pushes past him, pulls it open and sighs. “Oh,” he says. He turns and kisses Cloud on the mouth, firm and dismissive, and then walks around Sephiroth. “Don’t drag Angeal out for this,” he calls back. “If I’m wearied by this, he’ll be flat out.”

“Why aren’t you trying to kill me?” Sephiroth asks, ignoring Genesis. He sounds perfectly calm about it, as if killing him actually was the most logical thing to do.

“I don’t need to,” Cloud says.

A flicker of frustration goes across Sephiroth’s face and then his shoulders drop into a bracing position. He sighs and kneels before Cloud can get by him, as matter-of-fact as his voice. “Why don’t you _want_ to? You’re afraid of me and hate me and resent me, and you’d clearly feel better if you did.”

“How would you know?” Cloud snaps. He steps back into the room before he remember that it’s a damn storage room, with no windows. Then he steps out of it and yanks the door shut behind him. “I didn’t want to split up because one of us might end up killing somebody we shouldn’t.”

“Miss Gainsborough,” Sephiroth says. He pauses. “Miss Gainsborough has been informed of the WEAPONs and is on her way back here as we speak, with firm instructions that you’re to not run from her, as she put it.”

If she’s coming here, then—but she’ll just chase him, Cloud thinks sourly. Or make Tifa chase him. Either way, it’s going to end as badly if he stays as if he leaves. “This is not about making me feel better. This is about—about fixing things.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?” Sephiroth demands from his knees. “If it’s because of all the ways you’ve suffered at the hands of my—my analogs, very well, it’s debatable whether I should be punished for their acts but it’s _not_ debatable that you’re not enjoying this anymore than I am. Why torture yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Cloud spits out. He exhales. “I’m not. This just isn’t what I was expecting. I’m—I’m not supposed to _be here_.”

He pushes past Sephiroth. He’s expecting the man to grab him, try to stop him, and he’s ready to lash out, but Sephiroth is perfectly still. He lets Cloud go.

* * *

“You’re doing this wrong,” Zack says over cheap take-out noodles. He digs through the jumble of empty to overflowing containers scattered around the table, pushes the crab rangoons out of Reno’s reach, and comes up with a fistful of hot sauce packets. Two of them get squirted over his noodles and the rest get squirreled away. “You realize he’s trying to be nice? You know how long it took me to get him to see that if someone hands him a cup of coffee, it is _not_ a nefarious prelude?”

Reno scowls and claws over a box of egg rolls, stuffing one into his mouth. He scatters bits of the crispy skin all over Cloud’s lap because his head is on Cloud’s knee the entire time, and then twists over and begins dotting each bit up with his tongue. “To be fair, Fair,” he mumbles around Cloud’s trousers, “His coffee got dosed how many times between us and Hojo?”

“I don’t care if he’s trying to be nice.” Cloud shoves Reno off of him, abandons his noodles, and gets on a plane for Junon. He’ll just have to be fast, and hope Wutai can wait. Making this kind of decision, at least, is familiar enough.

Sephiroth comes along, after pointing out that if Genesis was able to fight alongside Cloud, he should be able to do the same. He seems to think that it’s a matter of building up tolerance; Cloud could point out to him that actually, it’s because fighting WEAPONs is basically meditation for Cloud and it’d be a different story if they were dealing with Wutai’s army. Cloud doesn’t. He doesn’t want Sephiroth along, but he doesn’t want Sephiroth going alone, and he doesn’t necessarily want to go alone. Maybe this whole timeline is spiraling out of control, but he’s not going to bet on that removing the risk to Aeris’ life.

“So if you don’t kill her, he’ll kill her, and sticking together makes sure that neither of you will kill her? Cloud, that is the lamest excuse for stalking I’ve ever heard.” The shaved ice leaves Zack with green lips and red teeth, so when he moans he looks like one of those demons that jump and gambol through Wutai art, except less cheerful and more exasperated. “Why don’t you just tell him not to kill her? I mean, he’s not even _going to_ anyway, or did you miss the part where he’s trying to be nice to you?”

“Even if he did, I sent Rude and Elena out with plenty of tranquilizer darts, and the formulation’s been kept up to date,” Vincent says. He looks a little weird standing on the beach, in his formal suit amid a forest of abandoned parasols and wood-slatted lounge chairs, radiating mild guilt. “Sephiroth…may have had some feedback episodes. In public. Seemed better to shoot him before he went after anyone.”

Zack rolls his eyes and crushes his paper cone, then slurps up the purple juice running from the bottom. “This is why he has trust issues, you know. Fine, yeah, agreed that Seph needs to learn not to react to Cloud deploying sex toys on Lazard by destroying the entire sparring facility, but—”

“I’m not stalking him,” Cloud just says, and stalks off to kill Sapphire WEAPON.

Sephiroth helps. It’s definitely one of the better outcomes, with heavy waterfront damage and a real dilemma for whoever’s got to relocate the WEAPON corpse, but no dead people, and it’s over quicker than Cloud expected. There’s just this moment afterward, when he’s standing on the body and Sephiroth is down on the sand and wiping at a streak of blood in his hair, and then Cloud sees this slick of water behind him, creeping up on him. The air presses down on Cloud, heavy as lead, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he thinks he knows this feeling, thinks he remembers it but it’s just—not—supposed—it’s just wrong. Wrong person, wrong place, and still, the panic in him is overwhelming.

“What the hell,” Zack says. He reaches behind himself, not turning his head, and upends his entire tray of coffee cups into the nearest trash can. “Look, Cloud, I get that you’re messed up all over the place and that’s because your life is a mess on infinite repeat, but what the _hell_?”

“That’s going to be terrible for the water filtration plants,” Lazard says absently, also staring at the seashore. The whole harbor is covered in a thin film of liquefied WEAPON, sand, chairs, leftover towels, everything. It’s glistening and green and starting to stink. “We’re going to need more engineers. Reeve’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown as it is, and if this is going to happen every time either of you take on a WEAPON, we’ll need clean-up teams.”

“Sephiroth didn’t do it, _Cloud_ did,” Zack snaps. “For Gaia’s sake, Cloud, you’re more of a problem than they are, you realize? They lose it, they just try to hump you. You lose it and you rearrange the landscape.”

“I did tell you,” Cloud snaps back, and gets on a plane for Midgar.

* * *

Nobody got caught in the backlash in Junon. It wasn’t an explosion. The WEAPON just…dissolved, and at first Cloud thought it was the Lifestream and panicked even more, but it wasn’t. It just spread everywhere, on everything, and that slick of water he’d seen completely disappeared in the middle of it, and in the middle of it Sephiroth had stood there and stared while it lapped around his ankles. Cloud doesn’t know what the hell it was.

He does know what he did, and why, and he just can’t do it anymore. He gets back to Midgar and promptly sneaks out, closing off his mind. Outside of it he can feel people scrambling, terrified, angry, trying to get through to him but he pushes them all off. There are a thousand things he should be looking into—Wutai, the rest of the WEAPONs, where the triplets are, just to start with the ones that could end the world. But he can’t do it. He won’t do it. Everything can go to hell without him.

He’s in the church long enough for his ass and the back of his neck to be hurting from the hard wood, but not long enough to want to talk. Not that Sephiroth ever cares.

“I’m not in your head,” Sephiroth says as he walks slowly up the aisle, his boots ringing against the stone floor. “I can’t get in anyway, but I’ve made a point of not trying because—”

“I know you’re not the same person,” Cloud mutters. He slouches lower in the pew and stares at the arching beams overhead. Still not broken through, but the leak is bigger. “I know you can turn out not evil. I’ve seen that enough times. I made that happen enough times.”

Sephiroth stops at the end of the pew. There’s the rustle of leather and then a couple soft clicks as he sets Masamune to lean against the pew. “For someone who’s centered his whole existence around controlling others, you seem remarkably bitter about it.”

“I’m not Jenova.” Cloud pulls his head off the pew and leans forward, resting his arms on his knees. He looks at the pool of water in the nave. It’s a fair bit deeper than the last time he was by, or the ground under it has subsided, or both. “I’m not you, either. And if I’m Aeris, then this is absolutely the worst version.”

“Why do you keep insisting you’re someone else?” Sephiroth asks. He’s frowning, when Cloud looks at him. “Admittedly, I haven’t lived through it, but the person you are doesn’t seem—doesn’t seem immediately objectionable.”

Cloud turns away. He’s in the front pew and if he stretches out his legs his toes would just touch the edge of the pool. He does stretch them out, and the water ripples around his boots. When he pulls back his feet he drags two wet streaks with him, breaking the edge, making a new trail for the water to seep along.

Something touches the side of his leg. He doesn’t look over but he knows Sephiroth is kneeling again, trying to look up into his face. “I’ve loved you over and over,” Cloud says, and hears Sephiroth’s stillness like it’s another’s exclamation. “I know, all right. It’s not you.”

“It _is_ me,” Sephiroth says. His voice is vibrating, drawn nearly to breaking. “So there have been many versions of me. I suppose at least some of them deserve my thanks, but I’d rather hate them. It’s me, this time. Whatever the others felt, that was them in their world, and this is me in mine, and they should not even be here. You can say you’ve felt this before but _I_ can’t.”

Cloud rubs his hand over his face. “That’s not—it’s not you, it’s—”

“You?” Sephiroth laughs. “It’s a start, acknowledging yourself.”

Cloud looks up, just wanting away—and the water is up around them, soaking into Cloud’s boots, gently lifting the folds of Sephiroth’s coat. He stares at it and Sephiroth sees him stare and then looks down himself, and that’s when the water surges up.

Sephiroth jerks up, then falls forward, his head just missing the edge of the pew, his arms down to break his fall. Except the water’s circled around them, holding them down, and he’s struggling against the hold. Cloud can see the water stretch like taffy as he pulls on his arms.

He gets one free and throws it over the pew, scattering droplets into Cloud’s lap. His other arm is sucked back, a froth-crested swirl pulling it behind him and turning him so Cloud can see the murky shapes of his legs under the water. The level’s up to his waist now, and creeping ever higher, rivulets slithering around the edges of his coat and pulling it open, slicking up the grooves of his ribs. His legs jerk apart, straight, involuntary, and the water between them dips momentarily, as if being pulled back. The black of his pants starts to slide down his legs and then his eyes widen, his hips hitch.

A roll along the top of the pool gains height until it crests at his nipples, and then the water drops until it’s just a thin layer, barely a finger deep on the flagstones, but there are trails of it all over Sephiroth. They band his now-bare thighs, course along his groin and shift restlessly around his cock, his scrotum. He hisses and lifts his hips again and Cloud glimpses a fat snake of water twisted around the wrist that’s pinned to Sephiroth’s back. Another one slides across one buttock, hard enough to indent the flesh, and drops into the crease as Sephiroth’s upbuck sends his open mouth bobbing close to Cloud’s knee. His free hand slips on the pew.

Cloud grabs it before it comes off. The water slicking over Sephiroth’s wrist kisses his fingers, then retreats, pulling up Sephiroth’s sleeve as it goes so Cloud’s hand slides off the slippery leather of Sephiroth’s glove and onto warm, wet skin. Sephiroth groans and arches, his head going back, belts of water dragging on his hair. His wrist twists insistently in Cloud’s grip.

He’s not in Cloud’s head but Cloud could be in his head, if Cloud wanted. Could wipe it clean, could fill it up with whatever he wanted. That’s Jenova.

Could take out everything Sephiroth has, take it and make it his own. That’s Sephiroth.

And he could just…help it. Could soothe the maelstrom in there, could reassure him, understand what he really wants. That’s Aeris.

It’s just—Cloud doesn’t want to be any of those people. He didn’t want to be himself either, not for a long time, and that never really changed. He just came to terms that he’d have to do something about it, do something _himself_ and not be someone else. And then he did, and kept doing it, and is still doing it. Or at least, he thought that was what he was doing.

The thing is, he kind of hates it now. He hates knowing and he hates not knowing and he just wonders if he can just…be. And then he gets it.

He leans down and Sephiroth leans up, pushing hard like he thinks the water will fight him, but it doesn’t. It lets him through and their mouths touch and then everything floods together.

* * *

And then they fuck in the church, with the water still tying Sephiroth down, pulling out his limbs and locking him on his back so Cloud can slide onto his cock. When Cloud lifts himself up he can feel the water sluicing around Sephiroth’s cock in his absence, squeezing along its length, and when he pushes down, he can feel it squirming between them. He does not get where this came from, everyone else at least had some relation to things that have happened before, but this, this is new. This is new and it makes Sephiroth as uncontrolled as a teenager, climaxing just as Cloud seats himself, again as Cloud reaches under them, runs his fingers through the thick column of water pumping between Sephiroth’s legs, a third time as Cloud comes himself, kissing the edges of the ball of water pushing just into Sephiroth’s mouth. It’s new and Cloud thinks he’s looking forward to figuring it out.

He doesn’t even notice when Sephiroth ends up in his mind. He doesn’t know whether he let the man in, or whether Sephiroth pushed. Sephiroth is just there.

Cloud was leaving, he’s thinking. That was what Cloud had been doing the first time he’d interrupted, trying to leave, and then he’s furious and fearful because Cloud had told him he was staying, _nesting_ , and he had been so relieved. Lying, he thinks.

No, Cloud hadn’t been. That’d been the theory at the time. Still probably the theory. Cloud just hadn’t liked the theory at that point.

 _Theories_ , Sephiroth sneers, even though his thoughts are still jagged and confused. He’s not used to that, from the way he yanks at them, tries to put them back into order and gets cut and is surprised he’s cut. It’s like what he felt at the first meeting. But still, he’d recognized Cloud. He’d spent his whole life thinking he was singular, knowing precisely the differences, and then that’d been exploded in an instant and he hadn’t known Cloud, hadn’t understood at all what was going on, had been absolutely furious at the lack of control, but he’d recognized it. The fit. Even if it’s not Cloud’s timeline, world, even if Sephiroth isn’t the _first_ , the only, who matches. It hurts Sephiroth’s pride but the point is that those differences are irrelevant.

Anyway, debatable if it is or is not Cloud’s world, at least by this point, Cloud thinks, curling up on top of the other man. The water’s drained away, leaving them wet and naked on hard stone, and he snorts at Sephiroth’s stray thought. “Tentacles, yes. This, no. I think I just made this up.”

“And who made up the tentacles?” Sephiroth mutters. Then he shifts uncomfortably under Cloud. “What? What…what is wrong with me?”

“It wasn’t you,” Cloud sighs, and is surprised at the fierce press of Sephiroth’s thoughts.

But it’s me, Sephiroth is thinking, hoping, pleading. It’s me. It’s _me_.

And yes, it is.

* * *

“In what sorry universe does generaling an army _require_ hand-to-hand combat?” Genesis asks when they get back. He’s still in Midgar, and it’s Angeal who’s gone back to the Wutai border to marshal the SOLDIERs from his sickbed, but it doesn’t make his attitude any less superior as he curls up beside Cloud, passive-aggressively blocks Sephiroth. “Also, please don’t ever be that idiotic again. We might not be rivals but Sephiroth and I certainly are, and I refuse to have my rival pine away as if we’re living out a third-rate sonnet.”

“I’m sorry about what I said, that was really shitty of me, but you were being an incredibly dense asshole. And then you ran off, which is being an incredibly dense asshole times _infinity_. But you are my friend, and so I forgive you for leaving me in a building full of unstable, violent people who are highly dependent on you,” Zack says. He hands Cloud half a bag of processed potato-based matter shaped into highly addictive fried chips, a lifetime membership card to a certain store below the Plate and a file of blueprints, which turn out to show planned renovations to Cloud’s quarters. Namely, a hugely expanded sleeping area. “Also, good on nailing down Seph. I’m really glad I didn’t have to resort to locking you two in a room so you could get over your trauma and figure out Seph’s insanely awkward courting fails. Please don’t let him kill me.”

“I’m glad to see you,” is all Vincent says, while his mind clicks through stalking—sorry, surveillance—rosters and makes notes on Cloud’s escape patterns and which interception points to give to Tseng and which to give to Reno. He’s actually more angry than guilt-ridden, but when he sinks down by Cloud’s feet, he presses his face to Cloud’s knee for a second and the pain of his relief sparks the first of what’s probably going to be an endless cycle of mutual guilt-tripping. Which, weirdly, isn’t a bad thing.

“Look, we can transition in five years if we really have to, but given that the short-term fertilizer use we’d need to boost crop yields would result in even greater long-term erosion, I’m hoping that you can convince the Planet to be reasonable,” Rufus says, hijacking Reeve’s presentation. He plays with a laser pointer in a suggestive way, sprawls in his chair so the outline of some kind of binding on his cock comes through the tight white pants, and then runs his hand slowly through his hair while his mind suggests they retire to his office. “By the way, Lazard and I would appreciate it if you took some reasonable steps to reduce the level of emotional feedback we’re subjected to while you handle issues with third parties. It’s inconvenient.”

“We did it!” Aeris says, hugging Cloud. She dances around him a little, tells him a long story about brave Nibelheim orphans and clever Turks and exploding choppers—Reno’s already thumping Rude for it in the corner, while Tifa and Elena compete for the reddest blush—and then hugs him again. Then she holds him out at arm’s length. “We both did. I’m so happy. Well, I’m not happy that the Planet can be _so_ dumb and WEAPONS are absolutely _not_ an acceptable way to make people come to their senses, and believe me, when I finally got the Lifestream to listen to me I gave it an earful and a half. But you’re happy now, aren’t you?”

“But,” Cloud starts.

“No buts,” Aeris says firmly. “I am putting my foot down. It’s completely unreasonable, what it’s asking you, and that’s the entire reason why you’re here and I am not going to let all my hard work just—just _leave_. It has to see that. We’ll talk to it.”

“To who?” Sephiroth asks, and somehow he pulls all of them together so they’re all, absent or not, hovering in Cloud’s head, wanting and expecting an answer. “Talk about what?”

* * *

So they all go to the church. Once the truce with Wutai is signed—Aeris lets one final WEAPON poke its head out to scare Wutai’s leaders into negotiating—and measures to move off Mako power are well under way, and everyone’s back in Midgar. They go to the church and stand around while Aeris carries out the most irritated prayer to call down Holy that Cloud’s seen her do. And then, once the rain’s ended and the pool is back, Cloud steps forward to talk through the water.

It’s like a Lifestream between the different timelines, or maybe it’s still the Lifestream, and pieces of it just bubble up in each world. There are definitely different arms and not everything carries over, but some things do, and anyway, Cloud’s never wanted to look too deeply into it, just in case he got lost. It’s overwhelming like that. It’s also multidimensional and so is Jenova, because she’s not just an alien, she’s this…pollutant, who keeps manifesting all over the place. She might be gone in one world but inevitably, Cloud begins to feel that pull and that’s when he usually jumps to the next world to find her.

“So the falling into a pool of Mako excuse,” Zack says. “It’s not really an excuse? This is how you actually get around?”

Sephiroth’s hand tightens on Cloud’s shoulder, even though Cloud is well clear of the pool’s edge. Angeal reaches out and slaps the back of Zack’s head, but he’s positioning himself for an intercept path if Cloud takes another step. If he actually tried it, he and Vincent and about five other people would all collide, and so it’s just as well that Aeris isn’t having any of it.

“We’re _talking_ about that,” Aeris says patiently. “Because it’s not fair. You can’t just keep jumping and jumping and jumping. You need somewhere to come back to, or else how are you going to keep your poor head straight? Everyone needs a touchstone. And it _saw_ that, it’s not stupid, and it gave Cloud this world so it can’t take it away now. That’s just—that’s _stupid_.”

Turns out it agrees. It’s annoyed right back at them, in fact, because it saw the problem too and gave Cloud a solution and was very patient with waiting for Cloud to get it. And also, never ever did it keep Cloud from backtracking. He just hadn’t ever tried it.

“Oh, you are just mean,” Aeris says, crossing her arms over her chest. “What is he supposed to think, with you always pushing him on?”

“It’s okay, Spike,” Zack says reassuringly. “We got you now. We’ll tie a bungee cord around you or something.”

Anyway, Cloud still needs to go at some point, but he can come back as long as he wants to come back. And when he comes back, he can come back to nearly the same time, hours or even just minutes passing. Apparently, if he’d tried it, he would have figured out he’s got just as much control over his backward jumps as his forward ones.

“You never even said you could control the forward ones,” Genesis says, incensed.

“Enough,” Sephiroth says. He steps up to Cloud’s side and eyes the pool.

“No,” Cloud says.

Aeris looks thoughtful. “Well, you could bring someone. It’d be less work for you and you’d have at least one other person around who doesn’t need explanations and you wouldn’t be lonely. I think I like it.”

“No,” Cloud says.

“I’m perfectly capable of killing me,” Sephiroth says.

“Well, if that’s the issue…” Genesis drawls, while the majority of the people in the room agree with him, with varying degrees of physical and mental indications to Cloud.

Cloud rolls his eyes. “ _No_. Because nobody’s going right now. I can jump into the timeline when I want so it’s not like I have to be in a hurry. So I’m not. I’m not going yet, and none of you can go without me.”

It should be disturbing how well that plays to the room. But it’s…not. It’s just good, and comfortable, and he really could live here, he thinks.

“Congratulations,” Aeris says, smiling. “Welcome home, Cloud.”

* * *

They never do find the triplets. There are worlds where the triplets just don’t exist, and Cloud begins to think of all the reasons why and the consequences of them. And then he stops himself, and just rolls over and curls up around whoever’s nearest. Once in a while, he thinks, it’s just better to wait and see.


End file.
